#he knows the risk of them losing their cover and that’s why he always stays vague in his words | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

explicit-tae · 6 months

Note

Hey can you write a jk fic about a world where people can't express anything like they can't laugh,cry or feel any type of emotions and they don't know about these and then jk feels something after seeing oc like that ...

Actually I don't know how to tell you 😭😭

Since there's not really a lot to go off of, I just did what I could with what you gave me 😅 hopefully its similar to what you were intending to say 🫶🏽

Cosmic Balance

Every universal realm has a positive and negative - good or bad. Jungkook manages to cross the portal from his dystopian world to your utopian one and decides that he'd do anything to stay with you.

Word Count: 8.786

Warning: dystopian world, sex-work/brothel, protected/unprotected sex, mentions of cheating, kissing, virtual reality sex, nipple sucking, oral sex, riding, creampie, slight dirty talk, fingering,

Alternate Universe

“Just try it…” is all Jungkook can hear in his mind. His eyes flash to the large digital clock flashing outside his window - he was supposed to be asleep now, as was everyone in his world. “It’s a portal to a whole different world. Just make sure you’re back by 6 am.”

Jungkook’s hands tremble as he grasps the cover on his mirror. It’s one - of many - forbidden rules, completely unforgivable. He never questioned why all reflected areas should be covered as night came, but then again, it was a question that should never be answered.

Jungkook’s world is dark and dull - gray. He was raised upon these rules - he and millions of others. There were rules that were meant to be followed and going against them meant dire consequences - death always an option.

Jungkook removes the cover quickly and swallows the lump in his throat. He stares at his reflection - the terrified look in his eyes and his heaving chest. He licks his lips, the thought of his breaking a forbidden rule has the hairs on his skin rising.

Jungkook looks closer at his reflection, his finger reaching out to touch. There’s a rippling effect in the reflection that when Jungkook touches, he visibly is horrified when his hand falls through the mirror.

Jungkook snatches himself away from the mirror and quickly covers the mirror with the cover once more. He falls onto his bed, heart thumping that they were right - his friends were correct. There was a whole different world besides the one he’s in now and the thought scares him.

Jungkook often wished that there was a different world he could live in. A world where there weren't strict rules for being excited - he could laugh freely in public when something was funny and not risk being arrested and fined.

Was there truly a world that allowed their people to be free - where the atmosphere was carefree and loving. Did the other world allow their people to laugh, smile - even cry - in public and not the confines of their own room. Did the other people only arrest those who were actually committing heinous crimes, and not because they were a minute late on curfew?

Did the other world allow their people to love and marry whoever they wanted? Jungkook thinks how in a few years at the age of 28 he would be married to whoever his government chose - based on status - and he would be expected to have a child no later than a year. Women who couldn’t bear children would be forced to be alone and provide for themselves. They were encouraged to be whores and work in brothels - “it’s not like you could bear a child anyways” is the harsh words the government would speak to them.

Men would oftentimes be ridiculed, losing job opportunities and their status in life lowering.

Jungkook thinks how his life would be if he was in another world where he could love who he wants to and not who he was chosen to.

It’s what Jungkook thinks when he sees you, the same work attire as his. You were soon destined to marry someone else just like he was and he knows that he could never have you. There was always a possibility that you would be chosen for him - but Jungkook doesn’t allow himself to think about it. He isn’t an idiot and he understands that you were going to be taken away by some other man and married - and you’d have that man’s child instead.

Your eyes meet Jungkook’s for a moment and he glances away. He was staring again, he thinks. You’re a smart woman and you know how he feels for you and understands that he could never act upon them. You weren’t a barren woman - and a relationship - sexual or not - prior to marriage to an unbarren woman is one of many forbidden rules.

“Still looking at Y/N?”

The seat beside Jungkook is taken by Taehyung. His friend opens the laptop and begins to type, continuing his work. He speaks in a low tone to not disturb the peace - doing so could lead to arrest.

“She could report you for harassment.”

You could, Jungkook thinks. Women have reported men for harassment all the time - harrassment being even glancing their way if they didn’t appreciate the act.

You could, but you never did.

“Have you gone to the brothel? Maybe you need to let off some steam.” Taehyung glances his way a bit, his typing not ceasing. “Staring at her isn’t going to make things easier.”

Jungkook doesn’t respond - because he knows Taehyung is correct. The last thing he did want was for you to report him for harassment. He could go to the brothel, sure, but there was no real connection there. He could fuck for as long as he desired, but there was no true connection to the women he was fucking nor did he ever know what these women looked like as their upper and lower body are separated.

Sex shouldn’t be so quick nor easy - so one sided. Jungkook wants to know did these women feel the same as he did - even if it was a quick high. Did they enjoy the way he fucked them or did they want him to be slower - or faster, go deeper.

“There you go,” Taehyung murmurs, his fingers typing fast. “in your head again. Did you do as we told you?”

Jungkook sends a e-document and shakes his head. “Freaked out.” he murmurs.

Taehyung snorts quietly. “I knew you would.”

Jungkook sighs. “It isn’t that easy.”

“How so? You walk through the mirror during an in-between and make sure you’re back on time.” Taehyung shrugs. He glances at you for a moment, noticing how your eyes are upon them - mainly Jungkook. You appear to be surprised that Taehyung catches you and quickly, you turn away.

“What are you afraid of?” Taehyung murmurs.

What was he afraid of?

There was a lot to be afraid of. He had never broken a forbidden rule before - uncovering a mirror after hours was an unforgivable one, and now he understood why. There was a whole different universe out there that was seemingly different than his own - he wouldn’t know how to navigate it. His friends had told him stories that appeared to be just that, stories. Something fictional and unbelievable.

Jungkook was afraid that if he went to this world, that he’d never want to return to his own.

Jungkook is disgusted with himself - disgusted in how he finds himself in the brothel.

Not only Jungkook - but many unmarried men starting at the age of 21-27. This was the only place where it didn’t matter how loud you were. You could scream, yell, curse - hell, cry. You can display any type of emotion inside the brothel.

The brothel had color and life to it - not the sad beige and gray of the outside world. It appeared to be like a dream - was this what the other world was like? Colorful? Cherry? Maybe that’s why his friend visited at night. It was like a vacation away from the reality in which they lived.

“Kook!”

As arm wraps around Jungkook’s shoulders.

“Not surprised to see you here after the way you acted at work.” Taehyung says loudly, his natural state booming inside of the brothel. “You’re late. We have to all be gone in an hour.”

Jungkook knows this - he never intended on coming until the last minute. It feels like he’s doing the walk of shame coming inside the brothel, but no one cares. All of these men inside of here were looking to get away; to let off steam from the world they lived in.

“You look depressed.” Taehyung snorts. “You know we don’t judge here.”

“Exactly, Kook.” Jimin places a hand on his shoulder, seemingly appearing from thin air. “I think you should try virtual reality.”

Jungkook scoffs. “It’s bad enough I’m in here.” he murmurs.

“Tae told me the way you were looking at Y/N.”

Of course Taehyung did.

“She’s a fertile woman. Meaning she will be married off to whoever the government chooses as would you.”

Jimin was never the one to sugar coat anything. Jungkook could only respect it.

“That doesn’t mean you can’t pretend.” Taehyung slaps Jungkook's back. “I’ll pay for it.”

Jungkook’s eyes widened. “That’ll be expensive.” he says with a shake of his head.

Casual sex was free and paid by the government. At first it’s weird - surrounded by men who were all taking turns on fucking multiple girls in the wall that you couldn’t see. But after a while it got easier and Jungkook only was there to cum and go.

Virtual Reality, however, was not free. It costs to have a private room, a girl and the virtual contact lenses to alter reality. You could choose whatever reality you desired for a price - and Jungkook already felt shitty enough about coming here.

“You’re never going to have Y/N unless fate is on your side.” Jimin says. “And fate is on no one side in our world.”

Meaning, Jungkook had to give up on having you chosen as his partner; an act he already gave up on.

“But just for an hour, you can pretend to be with her. It’ll feel good. I promise.”

Taehyung’s words ring through his ears. He’s done this before, Jungkook thinks. He only has a few months left until he’s set to be married, the woman he once wanted far from his reach.

“Okay.” Jungkook murmurs sullenly.

Jungkook is disgusted with himself already - and even more so. But he was a man and he couldn’t hide what desires he had for you.

All the desires he did have for you were taken out on the woman who’s name or face he did not know - he moaned for you. He called you pretty and beautiful and in his mind, he was fucking you.

Jungkook likes to think that in another world, he and you could be together. That you and he could talk freely without others speculating he was harassing you - a fertile unwed woman. But as of right now, he would pretend he was fucking you and not another woman in the brothel during virtual reality.

Jungkook’s eyes watch the way your face contort with pleasure as he fucks deep into you. There was only an hour until he had to leave and he took full advantage of it. He isn’t sure how many times he came, filling the condom he wore completely - but he never wants to stop.

Jungkook doesn’t want this reality with you to end - even deep down he knows that this wasn’t real. Those weren’t your moans nor was it your reaction to him but it’s what he has to deal with to feel closer to you.

“Ah, look at you.” Jimin smirks as he eyes Jungkook exiting the room. His eyes are slightly red due to having to remove the contact lenses. “Feel better?”

No, Jungkook thinks, but he only nods his head.

“What are you afraid of?”

Jungkook places a hand towards the mirror, his eyes widening as it begins to go through just as it did the night prior. He has to coach himself to do it - this was okay. He could do it - he could make it through the portal just fine.

As long as he was back before 6 am, he was good. No one would have to know that he was committing a crime that could be punishable by death.

The portal sucks him in completely - it’s dark and cold. Jungkook’s mind races and he opens his mouth to scream, but he can’t. The feeling is as if he’s jumped from a high surface, gravity completely taking a toll on him.

Jungkook falls onto the ground with a thud, his hands not able to catch himself. He releases a low groan at the impact he’s faced crashing to the floor. He grumbles and pushes himself off of the ground.

Jungkook’s eyes open and it’s then he realizes that he isn’t where he should be. This isn’t his room - even if it was nearly identical. The room had personality - not like the dull one he had back in his world. The ceiling was just as high as his back in his world but the bed is larger. He notices that the headboard - block - has a strange glow behind it and beneath the bed. It glows multiple colors that Jungkook finds fascinating. The large window - where outside displays a large digital clock for not only him, but for the surrounding homes to see - is covered by a long, dark curtain, blocking out the outside world. The closet is on the far right of the room and Jungkook’s curiosity peaks - his world, clothes weren’t expressive. They were bland and more of a uniform that most citizens wore.

Jungkook gasps, having strolled towards the closet and opened it. Even the clothes in this world had personality - different colors and textures. Long, short, tight or loose - it amazes him how people in this world could express themselves freely.

“Does your girlfriend know you have me here?” a voice sounds from right outside the door that Jungkook leaps into the closet and hides, only sliding the door close a bit to see.

Jungkook is flabbergasted upon seeing himself - or, this new world version of him. Did this man have the same name as him, or was it just a look alike?

“Y/N’s not going to be here tonight.” Jungkook hears his voice and he stiffens. “She’s out with her friends.”

Y/N.

You.

You were in this universe, too.

You and him - could Jungkook call this different version of this man “him”? Regardless, you and he were together.

You were his girlfriend in this universe.

And he was cheating on you - Jungkook wants to faint at the revelation alone that in this universe he had you. He had you - the person he wanted. There were no rules on sex outside of brothels here - nor did it appear that a government was controlling every aspect of life.

Jungkook had you in this universe - and he was cheating on you.

Jungkook couldn’t stay here any longer and watch himself be with another girl. He wouldn’t notice himself creeping out of the room - it's dimly lit and the only lights are that of the changing colorful ones. He’s slow with opening the door and closing it discreetly behind him.

The rest of the home is just as amazing as the bedroom - full of this version of him. There’s artwork displayed on the walls that catches Jungkook's eyes, but he doesn’t have the time to stop and appreciate it like he wants to because something else catches his eye. It’s in the hallway as he’s walking by.

A picture of you and him - together. You were smiling, arms wrapped firmly around him, your cheek pressed against his own. You looked beautiful; happy. He did, as well.

Jungkook touches the picture - were you different in this universe? Is this why he was cheating on you? There had to be a reason as to why this version of him would go against everything he wanted for one night with a woman when all he wanted was you.

Jungkook hears a muffled voice and his head snaps down the hall where his front door would be. He contemplates running, but he doesn’t. The door opens and his heart stops.

“Kookie.” you tilt your head and offer him a smile and then a confused look. “You’re still up?”

Jungkook doesn’t know what to say and it’s like his breath was taken away. You’re in front of him - you’re speaking to him.

You called him Kookie.

Your clothes are something he’d never see you wear in his world. Your dress is dark and tightly fitted and it shows a great amount of cleavage. Your skin looks so smooth and soft and his hands tremble to feel it beneath his palm.

“Are you okay?” you take a step forward, your heels clicking against the floor. You reach out to touch his forehead and Jungkook knows now that he isn’t okay. “You don’t feel hot-”

“Y/N.” Jungkook says, and this is his moment. He touches your face fondly, thumb pressing itself against your lips.

You snicker. “What’s gotten into you?” you ask. “I know I said I would be out all night but I wanted to come home to you.”

Jungkook releases a shaky breath at your words. You wanted to come home to him - but not him, your version of him. The same Jungkook that was cheating on you now and expecting not to see you.

Jungkook doesn’t want that for you - even if this was his last time seeing you in this world. He doesn’t want to be the reason for your pain. “Let’s go out together.”

“Together?” you knit your brows. “Dressed like that?”

Jungkook looks down at his own attire - basic black t-shirt and jeans that would only be acceptable for him to wear at home back in his world - but maybe in this one it was exactly that; basic.

“I just want to be with you.” Jungkook murmurs truthfully and you smile - a bright smile that causes his heart to sink. He would have to go home eventually, and he wouldn’t be able to see it anymore.

“Okay.” you nod slowly, taking his hand in yours. “You hungry? We can go to Late Night Slice.”

Jungkook is shocked to see how crowded the streets are. Back in his world, no one was allowed outside past 9 pm. Even during the day, citizens had to walk in a straight line, no more than three people standing side by side.

It was past curfew but yet here everyone was. People were laughing, littering the streets without a care in the world. There was a melodic tune playing, something he’s never heard before.

“You act like you’ve never heard music before.”

You say it as though you can read him, Jungkook thinks. “Music…” he murmurs, trailing off.

There wasn’t any music where Jungkook was from, and now he’s realizing that his world was Hell compared to this. It was night time but yet, everything was so bright. The laughter from everyone surrounding them, the music - the atmosphere in general.

Jungkook feels his skin erupt with goosebumps.

“Come,” you yank him lightly to get his attention and you fully have it. You take him to a small shop where only a few people were inside. The smell makes Jungkook’s stomach rumble and his mouth salivate. “I ordered ahead already, so it should be done.”

Order ahead? Jungkook wants to ask what you meant, but he doesn’t want to appear any more dumb than he was when it came to you and this world.

“I can take that.” Jungkook says as you go to grab a large tray of pizza - it smells as delicious as it looks and Jungkook cannot fathom how someone can be open and cook amazingly this late at night.

“I’ll go get our drinks.” you smile at him brightly that it nearly causes Jungkook to drop the tray of food. “Go find us a table, okay?”

“Yes.” Jungkook nods, licking his lips. He wants to hurt himself - not really. Hurt this version of him. As you and he sit here and eat as a couple, he was cheating on you with another woman - one not worthy of his attention.

Jungkook finds a table farther from everyone else and sits down, placing the tray of pizza onto the table. He watches from afar as you come back with two drinks in your hands and his lifts form into a small smile.

“What’s funny?” you ask him as you sit down across from him, placing the drink in front of him.

“I’m not laughing.” Jungkook knits his brows. “You just look very beautiful.”

Jungkooks cheeks are red as he speaks.

You’re taken aback by the compliment. “Ah, really?” you snort. “You only ever call me beautiful when you’re fucking me.”

Jungkook’s throat tightens at your words and his breath hitches. You can speak so freely in this world, he thinks. There doesn’t need to be a hidden conversation of whispers or hushed murmurs. “I-I…” he doesn’t know what to say. On one hand, the thought of him being with you outside of virtual reality has him excited - but the other part of him finds this version of himself highly selfish. He cannot think about only calling you beautiful when he is intimate with you - especially in a world in which he doesn’t have to hide his love. “...You’re very beautiful to me, Y/N. Even outside of…sex.”

You blink a few times, watching Jungkook intently. Slowly, you begin to smile. “Thank you.” you say softly. “I think you’re beautiful, as well, Kookie.” you say teasingly. “Now let’s eat!”

Jungkook never wants to go back to his world. He doesn’t want to leave you behind with the version of him that doesn’t love you. You and he eat and it mainly consists of you talking to him while he listens closely - he isn’t sure of what you are talking about. He isn’t from a world where “clubs” or “bars” are normal - but they seem fun.

Jungkook takes a sip of the drink you gave him and he immediately coughs.

“Kookie? You okay?” you rush to place a napkin in his hands.

“W-What is this?” Jungkook smells the clear drink and his eyes widen as it begins to fizzle.

“Sprite…?” you tilt your head. “Does it taste funny?”

Funny wasn’t the word - it tasted strong. He hasn’t tasted anything like this before, the taste feels as if it’s stabbing against his taste buds and fighting against his throat.

It was a weird taste that Jungkook liked.

Jungkook begins to chug the rest of the drink entirely, his body shuddering at the amazing taste. It brings a rush through him.

You watch wide eyed as Jungkook slams the cup down against the table and burp. He places a hand over his mouth at his crude actions. “Excuse-”

“You’re so cute, Kookie!” you laugh at his actions, a sweet melodic laugh that he wants to hear for the rest of his life.

Jungkook finds himself never wanting to leave you, but needing to each time he’s visited and coincidentally managing to not come face to face with himself while doing so.

The first time he had to go through the portal, there was a longing feeling holding him back - the euphoric sense that this new world was better. It was colorful and full of life - returning back to his world left him with deep sorrow. He was coming down from a serotonin high and he realized that each time he did so, he was growing more and more depressed.

But Jungkook couldn’t bring himself to care. He would go through the drop of serotonin if it meant he could see you every night - and each night he did. He would visit you, somehow managing to avoid himself, and have an amazing time with you in this Utopian world. Each night was something different - you took him to midnight festivals that played “music” - an amazing tune with people singing and dancing and it’s something you forced him to do with you.

And Jungkook loved it - he adored dancing with you. He enjoyed being carefree and not feeling judgmental eyes upon him. He tried different foods that his world would never allow, drinks that caused his taste buds to go crazy and such sweet snacks that at times would cause his teeth to hurt.

This utopian world was amazing and each time he would return home, he hated it. He was exhausted from the lack of sleep but wouldn’t stop from returning the next night because it was worth it to get away from his world and to see you.

On his 12th day of returning to the Utopian world, Jungkook isn’t alone. He hears screaming coming from further into the home. He ventures outside of the room stealthy to see what’s wrong - mainly because he hears your voice. It’s strained and filled with pain - as is your appearance when his eyes catch you. His heart drops when his eyes catch your face - you’re crying, a black streak streaming down your cheeks. It’s makeup he now knows, having watched you put on the products and astonished when it enhances your beauty even more.

“Where are you planning on going, Y/N?” Jungkook hears his voice say, his tone far too aggressive for his liking. “You live here. With me.”

“You had another woman in the same bed that I sleep in Jungkook.”

Jungkook sighs to himself, his heart falling once more. It was a matter of time until you found out, he thinks. It wasn’t something he wanted to happen for you - you were someone he loved, even if he wasn’t from this world. He wanted you to be happy and live an amazing life, even if it wasn’t with him but with the version of him that didn’t deserve you.

Jungkook watches you push him away with a huff when he tries to bring you closer to him.

“Fine.” Jungkook then shrugs with a scoff. “I’m leaving. If you want to pack everything and leave then you can. But I’m not forcing you to go.”

You snicker with a shake of your head at the audacity of Jungkook.

“You’re going to throw everything away because of one mistake?”

“Was it only once?” you ask him with folded arms. You’re waiting for him to respond to the question you know the answer to already. “Your silence tells me everything I need to know.”

You feel Jungkook’s eyes watch you storm away. He bites back a remark and instead decides to let you cool off. You weren’t going to leave him - where would you even go? You didn’t have anyone but him.

Jungkook watches himself leave out the front door, slamming it behind him as you’re making your way towards the bedroom. Jungkook saunters back inside the bedroom and hides inside the closet, a sense of deja vu coming through him.

You slam through the door and fall onto the large bed. You’re crying again and the sound makes Jungkook want to hurt this world's version of him.

An affair wasn’t allowed in his world and it’s a punishable offense. Of course, very few men loved their wives that they’re set upon and vice versa. Only few come to love one another - but it’s rare. He had to look at his own parents as evidence of this. As he and you would walk the busy streets the past weeks, he noticed people of all ages and genders together - two older couples sitting side by side enjoying one another's company. Two men holding one another while taking pictures - it’s nice to see and experience.

This version of Jungkook didn’t deserve you or this world, he thinks - he took it for granted.

“Y/N.”

You flinch at the sound of Jungkook’s voice. Your eyes widen at him, not hearing him come in. “W-Why are you in the closet?”

Jungkook swallows.

“And when did you change…?” your words trail off, hands wiping your tears.

“I’m sorry that he hurt you.” Jungkook murmurs, his tone lowering. His eyes are sad, you note, sad for you. He comes closer, his demeanor soft unlike the cocky and narcissistic one of that prior.

You stand to your feet and tilt your head, your eyes focusing on his face. “You just got a piercing earlier.” you murmur, more to yourself than to Jungkook. “Where did it go?”

Jungkook stiffens when he feels your fingers on his lips. His hand reaches up to touch yours on his face and he sighs. “I hate the way he treats you, Y/N. He doesn’t deserve you.”

Your head is spinning at Jungkook’s choice of words. You’re confused at how he’s wording everything - as if he’s a third person in this situation.

“Kookie…?”

Jungkook kisses your fingers then your hand. “I wish I could stay here with you. Forever.”

You aren’t sure how to feel, your emotions are spiraling. Jungkook speaks as if everything that went down between the two of you hasn’t happened - and your mind is beginning to fog; contemplating if it did or not.

“I’m not from here, Y/N.” Jungkook speaks once more, lowering your hand to your side and entangling his fingers with yours. “I wish I was so I could treat you better than him. I wouldn’t take you or this world for granted.”

You don’t speak, unable on what to say in response. You aren’t crying anymore, your cheeks stained with tears and puffy.

Jungkook tugs you deeper into the room and towards the mirror by the closet. You’re unsure what’s going on and where he’s getting at.

Jungkook’s sure he might regret this - that you would be freaked out to the point that you wouldn’t want to talk with him anymore, but he had to show you.

Jungkook stops in front of the mirror and turns towards you. He lifts your hand that’s holding his and slowly, brings it towards the mirror.

Your eyes widen in shock when your hand sinks into the mirror, a cold, windy feeling causing your hand to tremble.

“J-Jungkook-”

“I’m from a different world. I was just as scared as you are right now.” Jungkook says, bringing your hand out of the mirror and letting it go. His hands grasp your face. “I came here and everything's so…euphoric. It’s nice that everyone is accepting. There’s no strict rules enforced by the government to control you all.”

Jungkook’s thumb rubs along your lips.

“You…in my world you and I can never be together. Not unless the Government allowed it and I’m positive they aren’t. You are free to be in love with whoever you want here, Y/N. And I’m sorry this version of me is taking you for granted.”

Your heart is beating at an alarming rate. Your eyes are wide with shock at his words.

This Jungkook was not your Jungkook - not the man who cheated on you and left without as much as acknowledging your feelings. This Jungkook came from a different world - and as unbelievable as it sounded, it was true.

“Why can’t we be together?” you murmur, still unsure if this was reality or a dream - everything felt real at this point.

“The Government chooses who we marry based on ranking and status.” Jungkook explains. “You’re a woman who can bear children, so you’ll be married to someone of their choosing.”

Your eyebrows knit. “Why does it matter if I can bear children or not?”

Jungkook smiles sadly at you. “Barren women cannot be married.” He recalls wishing that you and he were both barren, then maybe the Government would see the two of you as useless and allow him to marry you - but life wasn’t that cruel to either of you.

“It must be a cruel world.” you murmur, and Jungkook agrees. “How long have you…”

Jungkook knows what you’re speaking of. “Close to two weeks. I’ve been coming to you every night.”

Your eyes widened and now, everything made sense. How Jungkook - well, not the one before you, but the other one - would be confused about the night prior, but you’d just thought he was either faking or too tired to. But no, you and this Jungkook from a different world were the one spending it together.

This is why the connection between the two of you suddenly has changed. It became bearable to be around Jungkook. He smiled and laughed more. He was willing to hold your hand wherever the two of you went and would sneak kisses at random times. He took more pictures with you and appeared overall happier than before.

But it wasn’t the Jungkook you know - it was a different version of him.

You snicker, your eyes swelling with tears.

Jungkook shakes his head. “I-I’m sorry for taking advantage of you, Y/N. Please don’t cry-”

You hand your head. “I’m not upset with you, Jungkook.” you say, blinking away the tears that are forming. “I’m upset that you and I can never be together because you aren’t from this world.”

Jungkook’s chest tightens at your words.

“And I…I can’t go to your world, either.” You didn’t want to, Jungkook thinks. He doesn’t want to see your demeanor and personality change if you went to a world so different from this one.

“I’m sorry-”

Jungkook is interrupted suddenly by your lips on his. He’s taken aback by your sudden actions, but he doesn’t push you awake.

“If there’s a world,” you remove your lips from his for a moment. “that is an alternate realm where you and I are in, that means…he can’t die.”

Jungkook isn’t sure where you’re getting at.

“Jungkook can’t die because then you’ll die.” you say, your hand caressing Jungkook’s cheek. “I-I don’t think you and he can be in the same world, either. It would probably cause some type of unbalance.”

Jungkook nods. “The in between opens at 12. I make sure I’m back before 6.”

You nod slowly.

“I want you to stay with me, Jungkook.” you murmur to him, as if it was a secret that only he can hear. “Wouldn’t you like that?”

Jungkook nods his head, doe-like eyes widening. “I do,” he admits. “but I don’t think-”

“SShh,” you peck him on his lips once more and Jungkook melts into the kiss. “we have a few hours before we can figure out what to do. I just want you to stay with me.”

Jungkook nods.

Kissing you had to be his favorite thing to do. And touching you, feeling your smooth skin against his palm.

Your back hits against the bed, legs wrapping around his waist to pull him closer. This Jungkook was different from the one you’ve known. He was gentle and kind. He cared for your feelings and truly wanted what was best for you.

“I don’t want to take advantage of you.” Jungkook manages to push himself away from you just as your hand dips underneath his pants. “You’re already hurting from what he’s done to you.”

“You aren’t like him.” It’s weird to speak of a different version of himself as if it was a whole different person with a different face. “I want to be with you.”

Your hands do make their way into his pants and you proceed to grasp his hardened length. Jungkook hisses. “O-Okay.” he nods hastily with no other argument. He caves far too easily - but he’s wanted you for so long. The virtual reality he had was an embarrassing moment he wanted to forget - but now he was going to have the real thing. The real you.

“I-I want to pleasure you.” Jungkook’s cheeks are tinted as he speaks, but it’s like a dream of his. Coming from a world where pleasuring a woman (before marriage) isn’t a priority, he wants to do this - especially with you.

Jungkook kisses your neck, inhaling your sweet scent that starts to drive him wild. His hands roam your body, grasping the hem of your shirt and lifting it over your head.

“You’re so beautiful, Y/N.” Jungkook murmurs, his lips kissing down your collarbone to between your breasts.”So beautiful and all mine.”

Jungkook doesn’t want this moment to end - he wants to savor every bit of it. He wants to sit and stare at the beauty that’s your body for hours if the universe would let him.

You feel Jungkook's hand dip behind your back to unclasp your bra. It’s left discarded, his hands roaming your back entirely. He shudders.

“You look scared.” you teased with a hushed tone. “As if you have never done this before.”

“I’m not married, so no, I have not.” Jungkook speaks. “Every man goes to the brothel but that isn’t pleasurable for the woman. I don’t even see their faces.”

You swallow, your eyes widening slightly.

“My friends often come here, too…” Jungkook begins, his hands slowly gripping your breast in the palm of his hands. “...and they told me how free it was here. What they’d do when they were pleasuring women here.”

Jungkook’s friends - you ponder if it’s the same friends in his world that Jungkook has in this one.

“And I want to try it.”

You yelp when you feel Jungkook’s mouth wrap a nipple into his mouth entirely, suckling as if his life depended on it. You weren’t complaining, enjoying just how needy Jungkook appeared. Jungkook groans in your breast, his free hand gripping your breast entirely while he sucks on the other. He’s unsure why he appears so stuck on your breast - or why he enjoys doing so. They didn’t have a particular taste to them - it only tasted like skin.

Jungkook’s positive that it’s your reaction to him doing so. Your moans - so sweet and velvety. The way your legs wrap around his waist a little tighter and your hand rests on the back of his head.

There’s a string of saliva connecting your nipple to his lips when Jungkook finally comes up from them. He licks his lips, eyes dark and full of lust.

You eye Jungkook has his lips place warm kisses upon your skin, dipping down to your stomach. His hands reach your shorts, tugging them down just as he gets lower and lower.

“Y-You don’t have to do that.” you say, embarrassed when Jungkook pulls down your shorts entirely.

Jungkook looks up at you for a moment before down at your exposed underwear - purple and cotton. They were cute, he thinks, especially as he witnesses the slight wet spot directly in the middle of them.

“Why not?” Jungkook places his fingers on your clothed clit, rubbing gently.

You swallow back a moan, thighs twitching. “Y-You never have…not you but. The other Jungkook.”

Jungkook wants to shake his head. The audacity of this other version of him - if he had the chance to ravish you at every given moment, he would. He didn’t understand why this world took everything for granted - being allowed to roam the streets after 9 Pm was a luxury alone that this world provided.

“But I want to.” Jungkook hooks his fingers between your panties and pushes it aside. He licks his lips at your wet clit and he hums. “So beautiful.” he murmurs.

Jungkook lowers himself to your heat and your eyes widen - he was really going to do this. You don’t have time to react, either. His tongue pokes out of his mouth and it’s already swiping along your clit.

“S-Stop…!” you yelp, jerking at the unfamiliar feeling.

Jungkook catches your legs just as they were about to crush him. “Relax, Y/N.” he laughs gleefully. “Just let me take care of you, okay?”

You bite your lip but nod. Your legs are trembling with nerves and slight embarrassment at how close Jungkook was to your sex - vaginas couldn’t look that appealing for him to appear ready to risk it all at just a taste of it.

But to Jungkook, it was. His nails dig into the skin of your thighs as he holds you into place, his tongue flat and his head shifting from side to side.

Your stomach bubbles with tension and pleasure. You aren’t aware that something like this could feel good for you - you imagined it whenever you went down on Jungkook, but there was a difference between the two genitalia.

Now, it was like Jungkook was getting rid of an itch you never knew was there. You couldn’t contain your moans any longer, nor did he want you to. There was no pleasuring any women from the brothel and in the end, even after he came, he could never feel truly satisfied with himself.

Now, it’s different. It’s more intimate - pleasuring you the way he wants to. His demeanor changes entirely from that of the soft man she’s come to love to be around - to a man hungry for what's between her legs.

“K-Kookie!” you yelp once more at feeling fingers pierce through your entrance. Even then, he doesnt stop sucking your clit.

Jungkook hums, the vibration felt throughout your lower region. His eyes dart up at you and it causes him to groan. So beautiful, he thinks. The look of pure bliss on your face, eyes fluttering closed as pleasure shoots through you.

Jungkook leans back to watch intently at the way your pussy tightens around his fingers. He pumps in and out, your juices coating not only his fingers, but down his palm and to his wrists.

“I wish I can stay here with you forever.” Jungkook says, adding another finger to fill you even more. “I would treat you better. I would never make you cry.”

Jungkook is such a smooth talker, you think . But even so, you believed him. His eyes are much softer and even now as he’s fucking his fingers inside of you, he’s still so loving.

“Kook - shit!” Jungkook connects his lips back onto your already swollen clit and is determined to make you cum.

Your hands grip along the bedsheets, your thighs trembling. It was all too much to handle right now. Each time your hips would buck, Jungkook would just push you back down onto the mattress and plunge his fingers even deeper.

“I know you’re about to cum.” Jungkook purrs, then goes back to lapping your clit, his eyes watching your every emotion. His fingers are hitting your spot so sweetly that you can’t hold it back anymore, releasing the tension from deep inside of you with a shriek.

Jungkook’s chest is soaked entirely, but he couldn’t care any less. Instead, he removes his fingers from inside of you and licks them clean.

Your thighs are trembling even more now, your eyes closing and your chest heaving in an attempt to catch your breath.

There was no way Jungkook never done this before. Even from a different world, Jungkook had to have some similar characteristics of the other Jungkook - determined to make you cum regardless if it was never his mouth or tongue, not stopping until he had.

“Are you okay?” Jungkook asks you, kissing your lips gently. You tasted yourself on him.

You hum a lazy response.

“So cute.” Jungkook smiles. “Are you tired? Hungry? “ he tilts his head for a response. “I can go get those sugar things you like with the chocolate filling-“

“I want you to fuck me before we think about eating.” you sigh, tone serious. Your eyes flutter open until they’re no longer blurry.

Jungkook’s cheek flush at your words. “You don’t even look like you’re capable of-“

Jungkook’s left stunned when you manage to flip him on his back, hovering right above him. “Just needed a few seconds is all.” you say to him. “I really want to taste you, too but…I’m really impatient.”

Jungkook nods hastily as you go to remove his pants.

“I will next time. Promise.”

Jungkook isn’t upset about you not returning the favor - he didn’t expect you to. Having the opportunity to do anything with you was what he truly desired.

“Don’t we need some form of protection?” Jungkook asks when you’re hovering above him, ready to bring him into you entirely.

“I’m on birth control.” You shake your head with a giggle and Jungkook only appears more confused.

“What’s that?”

You tilt your head. “There’s no birth control in your world?”

Jungkook shakes his head slowly, trying to ponder how anyone can control something like-

Jungkook gasps, feeling you entirely. You’re so warm and wet and his mind is going crazy at feeling you entirely raw.

“The chances of getting pregnant are low when on birth control.” you explain, placing both of your hands on his shoulders to steady yourself. “So it should be okay.”

Jungkook was going to take your word for it. His hands find your waist and it holds on it for support.

Your hips begin to rise and fall at a rhythmic pace, wet skin slapping against his own. Soon moans filled the room, both yours and his - and Jungkook wasn’t going to hide how good you were making him feel.

“Feel…so…good…” Jungkook huffs with each bounce on his cock. His eyes fight to focus on something for longer than a few seconds, but he can’t. Your breast bounces in his face and he tries to catch a nipple but fails a few times. Your face is so beautiful, contorted with pleasure as you take him.

“Does it?”

You lean back, your palms on his thighs. Your feet are pressed firmly onto the mattress and you continue your bouncing.

Jungkook hisses, the next position allowing him to go a bit deeper in you. You knew what you were doing, knowing exactly how to pleasure him just right. Jungkook wants to harm the other version of him - how could you go elsewhere when everything he needed was right here?

Jungkook opens his eyes to look at you and he grunts all over again. Your pussy is dripping all over him, creaming his cock so lovingly. There’s a white ring around his cock, evident of how much you were loving this.

“You’re so-“

“Beautiful?” you finished the sentence for Jungkook, giggling. You clench around him and Jungkook hisses.

“It’s true. You are.”

Your heart swells at his words - they aren’t just sex words. Often he would tell you how beautiful he thought you were and of course you were smitten. You thought it was your Jungkook, not this new Jungkook from a different world.

Jungkook allows his hands to roam your naked skin, goosebumps running along his arms. He hisses with a slight shake of his head. “You’re too g-good at this.”

“So were you.” you giggle, grinding against him. “Surprised you never pleasured a girl before.”

“I learn fast.” Jungkook licks his lips, pressing a thumb against your swollen clit, satisfied when you flinch.

While Jungkook's right hand plays with your clit, his left places itself on your ass and squeezes.

Jungkook flickers his eyes up st your face to find that you’re already looking at him. He gives a slight grin - the thrust upwards.

“Fuck, s-stop!” your body flushes with heat. “I was supposed to make you cum this time!”

“You are.” Jungkook hooks both of his arms beneath your thighs and then on your hips to keep you steady. “This birth control means I can cum in you?”

You bite your lip and nod and that's all the confirmation Jungkook needs.

Jungkook begins to pound into you, his pace entirely alarming and there's no build up to it. All he knows is that he’s wanted you for as long as he could remember and in this world he had you - you and whatever birth control was.

Soon the room is filled with wet squelching of your pussy being stuffed so full mixed with Jungkook’s grunts and your whimpers. Your arms wrap around Jungkook’s neck for support and this has Jungkook peppering your skin with kisses.

Jungkook doesn’t stop his pounding, not even when you're trembling and scratching along his back. He only snickers at your actions, far too enthralled in this moment that he doesn’t care what pain you might cause him.

“I-I don’t think-“

“Sshhh,” Jungkook presses his lips on yours to silence your whining. His teeth clap on your bottom lip, tugging slightly. “I know you can take it, baby.”

You came - an embarrassing moment for you. You didn’t hold in the shriek as you do so and it was entirely Jungkook’s fault - his insane stamina, his soft kisses on your skin and the dark whisper of a pet name.

Jungkook groans, your cum dripping out of you and onto him entirely. He could never get enough of you and each thrust has him hating the version of him that left you here crying.

“Gonna cum,” Jungkook huffs, kissing your face entirely. Your eyes are closed tightly and a few whimpers are releasing from your lips due to the overstimulation.

You clench around him as tight as you could to get Jungkook to cum and it works. A few sloppy thrusts and a deep moan later, Jungkook’s cumming deep inside of you - a wave of emotion shudders through his body.

You fall limp against Jungkook while your eyes flutter close. “So tired.” you murmur.

Jungkook places a kiss upon your forehead. “You don’t want those sugar things with the filling?”

You grumble, “It sounds like you want them.”

Jungkook does.

“I’ll put an order for them to be delivered.” you lift yourself and sigh. “How about you just take my phone and go get it? You remember the way?”

Jungkook nods his head and soon, you’re sleeping soundly on the bed.

Jungkook licks his lips as he gets dressed. Currency was different in your world. Though he worked, there was only a certain amount he could ever earn from his job, the rest went towards whatever the Government saw fit - funding the brothel and new technology to advance the world. Even being able to go somewhere and eat was a luxury - it was something the Government also controlled; when and how they got their food.

Jungkook opens the door to the room and stops dead in his tracks.

Jungkook blinks at the familiar face of himself. There’s a piercing on his eyebrow and lip and it causes Jungkook to tilt his head at it.

“What the fuck-“

Jungkook reacts entirely too fast, even before his mind can think of what to do. He watches as the version of himself falls back and holds his nose, blood pooling from his hand.

“You don’t belong here.” Jungkook murmurs , his voice dangerously low. “You don’t deserve her.”

Jungkook is surprised that you don’t awake - maybe you were that exhausted. He doesn’t stop punching until the version of him is unconscious and he’s covered in an alarming amount of blood.

Jungkook huffs. He grabs the versions of him arms and begins to drag him inside the room. He glances at your sleeping figure and feels an emotion go through him. He wants to love you the way you deserve - to care for you like he should be able to.

And with this Jungkook here, he never could.

Jungkook pushes towards the mirror, the ripple effect telling him that there was still time.

There’s a moan - he was waking up. Jungkook curses mentally to himself and pushes as hard as he could to this world’s Jungkook until he’s fully through the mirror.

Now, all he had to do was wait until it was time for the portal to be closed.

Jungkook’s eyes open, shooting straight up. His eyes look around his surroundings - where the fuck was he?

This wasn’t his room - no, it couldn’t be. It was so dull, dark. Plain - where were the lights he had on his bed? Where were the mirrors he placed up?

Jungkook’s eyes the large window outside, noticing that lights were peaking through. There was a digital clock flashing red numbers. He shakes his head. “What the hell…?”

Jungkook turns towards the mirror in front of him, eyes wide as it begins to crack. He shields himself with his hands as mirror pieces begin to fly on him suddenly, the mirror breaking out of thin air.

Jungkook releases a deep breath, hammer in hand. His chest heaves, the mirror shards surrounding him entirely.

“Kookie?!”

You run inside the room, head flailing around to see what the commotion was. “How did the mirror…” your eyes glance down to the hammer in Jungkook’s hands.

It was now 6 A.M, Jungkook notes, and it was time for his world to wake and go on with their lives - without him.

“I thought you said you were gonna go shower?” Jungkook drops the hammer and turns towards you. “Sorry if I disturbed you.”

You sigh, shoulders relaxing. “It’s okay.” you say. “Is…is the portal gone?”

Jungkook nods his head, for now at least. He’s positive there was a way for him to return through a different mirror - but he had no intentions to. As long as the Utopian world Jungkook didn’t know how to return, he was satisfied.

“Good.” you smile at Jungkook, a genuine smile that warms his heart.

Good - it was good. Now Jungkook could have you like he always has - no strict rules, no Government forcing him to marry a woman he didn’t want.

Just you and him - you & this Jungkook - forever.

@seokjinkismet @bloodline1632 @babycandy111

#explicit-tae #bangtanwritershq #bts smut #btswritersclub #jungkook x reader #jungkook smut #bangtan smut #alternate universe #alternate universe masterlist #jungkook fluff #bangtanwriters net #cosmic balance

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skzdarlings · 4 months

Text

verisimilitude ; hyunjin x reader ; one-shot

masterlist.

( READ ON AO3. )

You are a self-identified no-nonsense curmudgeon. Your best friend is an eccentric pretty boy. You accidentally send him an explicit video of yourself. What's the worst that can happen?

pairing: hwang hyunjin/reader content info: romantic comedy. best friends to lovers. curly-haired reader because mood. accidental sexting. accidental voyeurism. sexual tension. resolved sexual tension. very explicit sexual content. not so much dom/sub but hyunjin explicitly prefer control. sexual discovery. very horny leads lol. (word count: 19500 words.)

You look like Hyunjin’s lawyer again.

Your best friend has gravitated to a somewhat more punk persona in recent years. You say somewhat because you are not sure it runs deeper than aesthetic, though he would probably be forgiven on account of his perfect face. His good looks combined with his natural charisma lets him get away with most things.

His vibrant red hair catches the sunlight like a painted flame, a perfect stroke of red against the beige canvas of the art gallery’s exterior. He is slouching against the wall, hands in the pockets of his leather jacket, squinting in the light. He looks like a rather put upon a vampire given the dark garb and eyeliner.

Then he turns his head and sees you. You are wearing one of your usual blazers and modest skirts, your untameable mess of curls twisted into an updo that is fighting (and losing) against the wind. You try not to feel too preposterous, peeling bits of hair out of your mouth as you approach him.

He smiles. Some people think his smiles look a bit smarmy and you suppose they are not wrong, his lips perpetually quirked like a punchline just occurred to him, but you know your best friend well. Despite the intimidating ring of dark eye-make up, his eyes are alight with a great deal of affection. If you were prone to sentimentality, you might concede a heart flutter.

You clear your throat and march ahead. He saunters up the path to you. You meet halfway.

“Hi, pretty girl,” he says.

He is the only person allowed to call you that.

“Hello, Hyunjin,” you say. You lack his playful charm so you do not have a nickname to return. You are more comfortable around Hyunjin than anyone else on earth, and you are still awkward around him. “Thank you for the invitation,” you say. “I appreciate you might have otherwise wanted the time to yourself, so I hope I am not imposing by accepting.”

He laughs. When all you do is blink at him, stone-faced, he covers his mouth with a delicate touch of his long fingers, still smirking behind them.

“Sorry, why wouldn’t I want you to say yes?” he asks. “We always go to the new exhibitions together.”

You tuck back an errant curl only for another to whip across your brow.

“Well,” you say, tucking that one back too. “Since I am temporarily living with you, I thought my company might grow wearisome in a way it usually does not. Familiarity breeding contempt and all that.”

Though you state this observation with your usual pragmatic detachment, you are very insecure about it. You gave this risk a great deal of consideration prior to moving in with Hyunjin. You are only staying in his apartment’s spare bedroom for a few months while your disaster of a townhouse undergoes repairs (the upstairs bathroom flooded again), but you have never lived with Hyunjin before. You are aware of your short-comings and you were very worried that your best friend was going to tire of you within a week.

It has been a month now and he has shown no signs of despising your existence, but it is still best to brace oneself for every eventuality.

He just smiles and puts both hands in his pockets.

“Are you getting sick of me?” he asks.

Another ringlet whips across your face.

“Good grief,” you say, frantically pushing it aside. “Of course not! How could anyone ever get sick of you?” What a preposterous thought. Hyunjin just has to wink for the universe to re-arrange itself. People adore him. He is handsome and funny and charming and talented and intelligent. You have known him for most of your life and you are still unearthing his many intricate layers. As if you could ever grow tired of him. “I think that’s the most foolish thing you’ve ever said,” you say with complete sincerity.

He laughs some more, tossing his head back so all that red hair flutters behind him. The wind co-operates with his hair, of course, working in tandem with the sunlight to flatter him.

“Are you sure? I’ve said a lot of foolish things,” he says.

You sputter when a curl flies into your mouth. You push it away.

“Yes, well,” you say. “That much is true too.”

He looks at you for a moment. You can’t imagine why. The sunlight is beaming right in your eyes and the wind is beating you to a pulp. Maybe you look so hideous that he is contemplating a means of escape.

Then one hand lifts out of his pocket, long fingers reaching for you. It is very unexpected. You stare into his face, a stoic mask concealing your confusion. His eyes do not meet yours, his gaze on a loose curl. He is gentle in the way he scoops it up and smoothly tucks it behind your ear. A shiver erupts under the brush of his fingertips, that heart flutter loosing itself when his touch lingers.

Then he smiles and puts his hand back in his pocket.

“Sweet?” he asks.

“Excuse me?”

“Do you want a sweet?” He whips an open bag of gummies out of his pocket.

“Oh.” You look at the bag. “Um. No.”

“Are you sure?” He shakes the bag. “It’s your favourite.”

“Oh.” Your attention went awry with the race of your heart but you do observe the candy is one you enjoy. “Okay. Thank you.” You take a few and pop them in your mouth.

He upturns the bag over his mouth, finishing off the sugar. You hope your eyes don’t widen at the flick of his tongue. Oh, it really is cumbersome when your nether region gets an idea about Hyunjin. You try to ignore the heat down there.

“Come on, pretty girl,” he says, already striding away. The man is at least 80% per cent leg so it puts him ahead rather quickly.

You are too refined to scamper-and-scurry, but you might pitter-and-patter to catch up.

You are able to lose yourself in the art exhibition. You and Hyunjin share a meal afterward, discussing everything at length. Hyunjin is a little quieter than usual so you apologize for speaking too much. He is gazing at you, his chin is propped in his hand. Surprise flickers in his expression when you apologize, but he recovers, waving his hand like it’s no matter.

You return to his home and separate for the evening. You to your studies, him to his evening work-out.

You are in the apartment’s quaint living room when Hyunjin gets back from the gym. He is an absolute sight, bare-faced, his red hair yanked into a half-ponytail. There is a subtle, rolling musculature to his arms, proudly displayed in his sleeveless shirt, and he is glistening with sweat from top to bottom. It should be gross. You pride yourself on cleanliness.

But good grief. He is gorgeous.

You are sitting cross-legged on the couch, comfortably dressed down in a sweatshirt and pyjama pants. You peek at him over the top of your book only to find him already staring at you. He is rubbing the back of his neck with a towel, his arm flexed. When he catches you looking, his lips pull into a lazy smile.

You duck behind your book again. It is a poor shield, or maybe he is a cunning adversary, because your heart keeps racing anyway.

“Whatcha reading?” he asks. You can hear his slow approach. The towel is tossed somewhere.

“A book,” you say.

“Funny,” he says. He is in front of you now. You have no time to strategize before he plucks the book out of your hand and holds it over his head.

“Hyunjin!” You muster all the indignant attitude you can. “That’s not funny. We’re not children anymore. Return my book at once.”

“I want a hug first,” he says, his full lips in a silly pout.

“Out of the question.” You hope you do not sound as flustered as you feel. “You’re disgusting. Look at the state of you.”

“Please?” He blinks his long lashes at you.

You stand up and try to look imposing, hands on your hips. His smile does not diminish. He waves the book in the air.

You lunge, diving at the book and failing spectacularly. He holds it out of reach, laughing, then he tries to wrap you up in a hug. He smells like sweat and exertion and it makes you think of sex. This is sufficiently startling enough to cause a fumble. You spill backwards, a frantic hand thoughtlessly grasping for an anchor. Your fingers hook in the neck of his shirt which has the predictable outcome of dragging him with you onto the couch.

His more athletic reflexes kick in, just enough that he drops the book and catches himself with his hands. He successively suspends his weight above you, which is nice, but you still thump your head on the arm of the couch, which is less nice.

“Are you okay?” he asks when you hiss and grab your head. The laughter has left his voice, replaced with genuine concern.

“No,” you say, petulantly. “A horrible sweaty man stole my book and beat me up.”

He laughs, a twinkling sound that enchants you despite everything.

“Poor baby,” he says. “That sounds so disgusting. Will a hug help…?”

“Don’t you dare—hmmf!” He lowers himself and squishes you. You can’t help the laughter that bubbles out of you, partially because he swipes his nose on your neck and it tickles, largely because his laughter is infectious. “Oh,” you say, pushing his face away. “You are a horrible person.”

He giggles with boyish mirth. It is at odds with the man he is, all hard planes and sturdy lines, an unfamiliar twinkle in his dark eyes. You look back at him, at a loss for words. Even if you were the sort of person to confess attraction, you would surely seem strange for finding his dishevelled appearance so desirable.

Finally, you push him, diverting your gaze with an eye roll.

“All right,” you say. “That’s quite enough now. There’s a shower at your disposal and I recommend you make use of it sooner than later. Go on, get.”

He obliges, but not without a cheeky kiss to your forehead. It flusters you more than a chaste kiss should.

He just winks, because of course the charmer is unaffected by such an innocent touch. Hyunjin is too gushy and romantic to womanize, but he is certainly liberal with his sexual appetite. You had the displeasure of running into a one-night stand your first weekend here. Hyunjin left for work and let her sleep, assuming she would show herself out. She was a pretty chatterbox and she bounded into the kitchen to strike up a very one-sided conversation with you in your bathrobe.

He did apologize for that. He knows you do not like unexpected visitors at the best of times, never mind first thing in the morning, and certainly never mind ones he knew intimately. Fortunately, it was the first and last time you made scrambled eggs for his hook-up.

You are not in the habit of hook-ups, to say the very least, preferring a serving of scrambled eggs for one. You had one boyfriend a few years ago but he was not the sort of man to tackle you onto the couch in a sweaty, flirtatious tangle. You would have bopped him on the nose for trying, in fact. Hyunjin really does get away with everything.

Your nethers are getting ideas again. The territory below your belt is usually well-behaved but unfortunately it lacks any sense when it comes to Hyunjin. More time spent in proximity appears to be worsening its condition.

You assume a blank face in the hopes of concealing any trace of arousal, watching Hyunjin amble his sweaty way to the bathroom.

Oh dear. You are very wound up. Something will have to be done or you will never sleep tonight.

You are blessedly granted an opportunity to satisfy your baser urges when Hyunjin emerges fully dressed for an evening out. Some friends are at a bar down the street and they invited Hyunjin to join them. Hyunjin tries to cajole you into joining him, promising it’s just a few drinks and teasing that your book won’t go anywhere, but your book is not how you intend to pass the time alone so his encouragement does not tempt you.

“I’ll be back soon,” he says, shrugging on a leather vest. His back is to you so you openly admire his form, his arms on display, his long legs, his ringed fingers as they gather his hair to tie in a knot. He turns around before leaving, giving you one last finger-wiggle wave and a bounce of his eyebrows.

He looks sinfully good. You hope you look casual. Innocently awaiting a quiet evening.

Fifteen minutes later you are sitting in front of the full-length bedroom mirror, admiring yourself in a white satin babydoll. Flaws like frizzy curls or unflattering shapes seem insignificant in the soft lighting and lingerie. Your curls seem curlier, your face lovelier, your body more tempting than ever.

Though the idea of pursuing a real fling is mortifying, you lament the lack of company in an abstract way. You feel pretty and ready and wound up. When such a fancy strikes, the best form of satisfaction is found in self-appreciation.

The taboo of filming yourself always triples your arousal. Even if there is no real audience, you can’t help but feel regarded.

Eyes closed, phone camera filming, you imagine a certain pair of dark eyes on you. You make the vaguest attempt to think of something else, peripherally aware that you shouldn’t fantasize about your best friend like this, but the attempt is useless. It will always be Hyunjin. Hyunjin with his fiery red hair, his smirks, his expressive brows and dark eyes. Hyunjin’s hands, his fluid hips, his athleticism. Hyunjin in black and leather, so contrary to your modest simplicity. Hyunjin sweaty and raw and determined, pinning you under him.

Hyunjin, the person you know and like and love more than anything.

You lift the babydoll and twist, filming yourself through the mirror, showing where a thick toy disappears inside of you. You rock a little, so wet you can hear it, every nerve tingling as you become someone else in your reflection. With the apartment to yourself, you don’t restrain any noises, especially when you sit back and fuck yourself with the toy. You stop filming because you need that hand to finish, but you are so close that it only takes a few touches to climax.

You slump back, satisfied for a while, then a little embarrassed. You have a quick shower then climb into bed where you can’t help but watch your video. You imagine a particular someone else watching it and it winds you up all over again. You are still wet and sensitive, your fingers slipping smoothly into your shorts. Your put the phone down and think of Hyunjin’s long fingers, his breath on your neck and his lips grazing your skin as he works his lovely hand inside you.

When you are finished, truly finished, you feel momentarily miserable in your loneliness. You try to imagine a version of yourself that went with Hyunjin to the bar, but even that fantasy only gets you so far. Nothing would have happened. Nothing has ever happened.

Hyunjin interrupts your wallowing stream of self-pity. He texts you a rather exasperated-looking selfie, captioning it with, I miss you, I’d rather be at home.

It makes you smile. It is probably foolish, but suppressing it is useless so you surrender to the warm glow in your chest.

You text back a heart. He replies, you never told me what you were reading. He must be truly bored if he is texting about your books, but you dutifully reply like there is nothing unusual about the question. He sends back a smiling emoji and a string of hearts.

You fall asleep after that. You wake in the morning to a slew of missed text messages, Hyunjin insisting that he is having the worst night of his life because you didn’t come with him. This is nonsense, of course, but he attacks you with an arsenal of teary-eyed emojis so you send an obligatory heart his way. You are too sleepy to formulate a rejoinder, much less type one, so it will have to suffice.

You click through your phone to wake up, still foggy after exhausting all notifications. You open your photo album and find your video from last night. You click on it just as a message alert swings down. You instinctively swipe it away, but your clumsy finger opens the messenger. You click around a little haphazardly, finger flying everywhere.

After a bit of sleepy swiping, you close everything then check the message. The text you just swiped was from Hyunjin, some goofy good morning remark with a squinty-eyed selfie under it. Hyunjin does his make-up so severely these days so you like his softer, bare-faced selfies, especially because you know he sends them to no one else. He will post elaborate photos all over his social media, but the simple stuff is for you.

But you have no time to enjoy the selfie, because you are distracted by your own unwitting reply.

Oh no.

You snap up so quickly that it nearly causes whiplash. You are wide awake now, staring at the paused video of you in a white satin babydoll.

You slap a hand over your mouth. For a long moment, all you can do is stare. Your head feels fuzzy, a radiating aura of fantastical insanity clouding your periphery. Then you realize it is actually just your hair, because you fell asleep so suddenly and didn’t put on your bonnet.

You look in the mirror. You look like someone electrocuted you. Fitting, because that’s what you feel like.

Your phone buzzes. In your silent but sublime mania, you dropped your phone facedown on the blanket. You are tempted to hurl the demonic device across the room but that will solve nothing.

You pick up the phone. This is probably what execution feels like.

Hyunjin, perpetually artistic in every capacity, even the literary, summarizes the exchange with one poetic text:

You fling yourself facedown on the bed and kick your legs like a petulant child. The sky does not open, you are not struck by lightning, and the earth does not gobble you up, so you roll over and shakily type a reply.

That was an accident, you write. Surprisingly, once you start typing, it is hard to stop. You continue:

Oh my good gracious, Hyunjin.

Hyunjin, I am so sorry. I cannot apologize to you enough.

I assure you that was a complete accident.

I would never accost you so unsuspectingly with unprovoked licentious content.

An ellipses appears in the corner, Hyunjin typing a reply. It feels like your stomach has folded in on itself. You lay there with your hand cupped over it, willing yourself to explode. But no, it would be very rude to explode in Hyunjin’s spare bedroom. Bad enough you have attacked him with your inappropriate spank fodder, it would be uncouth to make him clean your spattered guts off the wall.

Hyunjin finally replies, that makes sense… you aren’t the unprovoked licentious content type usually…

I assure you I am not, you reply. I keep these videos to myself. I would never intentionally spring them on you.

There’s more than one?? he replies, and you are mortified all over again. Maybe you should just explode after all.

I assure you I will keep those where they are, you reply. I cannot apologize enough. If you want me to leave, I will pack my things immediately. You are not one for extreme emotion, but you feel an unfamiliar stabbing in your eyes. You realize with horror that it is the threat of tears as you imagine Hyunjin banishing you from his life forever. Other people come and go but there is only one Hyunjin. He is irreplaceable in your esteem, even if he dresses like a goth Las Vegas showgirl.

His replies come flying in, one after the other:

Whoa whoa

it’s okay

calm down

pretty girl hey hey hey

I don’t want you going anywhere

You take a breath and calm yourself. You do Hyunjin a great disservice by thinking he would destroy your friendship over an accident. You blame your embarrassment for your poor rationality.

I should be apologizing to you, he says. He continues swiftly:

I kinda clicked on it…?

I didn’t know what it was. But I stopped once I did

I feel really bad

See baby now we’re both embarrassed idiots <3

You can’t help but laugh, just a little, the entire mishap suddenly comically preposterous. You smile fondly at your phone. The unexpected address of baby gives you a heart flutter, but then the rest of it makes you pause. A different embarrassment creeps into the corner of your brain, something gross and mean that interprets his words ungenerously. Stopping would be the gentlemanly thing to do, so you should commend his restraint. Still, some half-insane part of you is offended that the only emotion it invoked in him was “bad”.

It made him feel bad. Goodness. Talk about an ego blow.

The least you can do is soothe his conscience. You have already put your foot in your mouth, not to mention toys in unspeakable places, so you figure another penetrative misstep cannot hurt the situation. You write, I don’t mind you watching it. I just feel horrific for sending it in the first place. I really am sorry.

The ellipses appears. Then disappears. Then appears. Then disappears. Then appears. Then disappears.

You start to wonder if you should check on him. He is just one room over, after all. But you would rather explode once and for all than face him right now.

The buzzer goes off in the main room, signalling a visitor outside. Hyunjin finally texts, one sec. Then you hear him clamouring around in the next room. Hyunjin is very graceful when he deigns to apply himself but other times he has the equilibrium of an overgrown gazelle. All those limbs clatter around his bedroom and you think he knocks a lamp over.

It sounds like the visitor is just a package delivery. You leave him to his devices. In the face of chaos, routine is a reliable companion. You get up to dress yourself for the day. Your hair is trying to force its way into a new dimension so it should take a while to fix.

Everything will be fine.

Everything is fine until it is not. Well, Hyunjin’s complexion is red as his hair when you meet face-to-face, but he recovers with an expected degree of poise and equanimity. Despite your own internal chaos, you feign a similar indifference.

Verisimilitude, you tell yourself. Pretend everything is fine and everything will be fine.

You think there might be an undercurrent of awkwardness to your interactions, but your social ineptitude makes it difficult to discern. Your usual frankness fails as deliberately enquiring after Hyunjin’s opinion would consequently highlight the very issue you are striving to ignore. Verisimilitude means nothing if you look him in the eye and ask if your pussy has made the friendship awkward.

After a few days of polite camaraderie, you opt to solve your problems by running away. You inform Hyunjin you will be occupied with a research project and thus mostly absent for the duration of its completion. By the time you emerge from the depths of the university library, hopefully this entire embarrassing situation will be forgotten.

You throw yourself into your academic distraction. A truly comprehensive research project encompasses obstacles, minute quandaries you inevitably resolve, but this time it feels like there are no answers to be found. No resolutions, no conclusions.

Your anxiety is ultimately exacerbated. Even your dreams suffer. You wake multiple nights in a row from nightmares caused by stress. Your usual pragmatic thoughtfulness abandons you in the dark, every shadow just another terror waiting to unleash itself.

You wake from yet another nightmare. Your heart is palpitating and you are too hot under your covers. You kick to freedom and swing out of bed, whipping your silk bonnet onto the floor in a rare display of aggression. You are frustrated with your seemingly inescapable burdens. You want to pick up your phone and text Hyunjin despite the late hour, but that is the one thing you vehemently cannot do right now.

You sigh and leave bed. It is the middle of the night so you cannot start the day, but maybe a glass of water will refresh you.

It seems your friend had the same idea. Hyunjin is puttering around the kitchen when you stumble into the soft golden lamplight.

“Hey,” he says, not unfriendly but maybe a little uncertain.

“Hello,” you duly reply.

You are definitely awake now. Hyunjin is standing there wearing a pair of black boxers and a t-shirt. His red hair is loose around his bare face, unkempt but somehow still charming. He is so effortlessly beautiful. You feel like a mongrel in your baggy shirt and panties, your hair down like a messy lion mane.

You try not to stare at him, meeting his gaze politely only to find him blinking quite wildly, a stuttering breath spilling over his full lips. He clamps his mouth shut and returns your stare, smiling a thin smile that does not reach his eyes.

“Are you okay?” he asks.

It is a thoughtless query, no doubt. The sort of inane question one poses because decorum dictates it is appropriate chatter. Are you okay. Yes, how are you.

But you are looking at the beautiful and completely unattainable man you are so irrevocably in love with, and you feel horrible and disgusting, and you sent an embarrassing video that somehow humiliated him even more than you, and even your reliable books and academic joys are lacking these days.

You can count on one hand the number of times you have cried over the years. It is not something that comes easily to you. You are not made of stone, despite the occasional lambaste at your expense, but your emotions seldom manifest according to the unspoken rules of human conduct. But right now your eyes strain and your throat feels rough. You sniff and shake your head.

“No,” you say. “I’m not okay.”

A single tear falls. From you, that is practically a waterfall.

Hyunjin snaps out of whatever trance had him so enthralled. You cannot see him clearly through your watery eyes, but you feel his hands as they wrap around your arms. Hyunjin is an artist, those long fingers deft and nimble and steady. You shiver when he brushes your hair off your neck, when he cups your face in his hand and strokes your cheek tenderly.

“Hey, hey, pretty girl,” he says. “What’s this? What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” you say automatically. You hate being a burden. Feelings belong in bottles, not streaming down faces in salty rivulets in the middle of the night when everyone is in their underwear.

But it is too late to spare your dignity. Hyunjin is wiping away your tears and looking at you with abject concern, his expressive dark brows furrowed and his eyes so intensely locked on yours. You heave a sigh.

“A lot of things,” you admit. “I’m sorry, Hyunjin. It’s just stress. My research. You know how it is.”

He does not look satisfied, all that concern still scrawled across his face. He swipes his thumb across your cheek again. Then he is pulling you towards his chest, arms open for an embrace that makes no demands but simply offers. You are usually stiff and awkward when people hug you, but Hyunjin is not just people. You fall into his arms and all but collapse there.

Your next sigh is filled with relief, your head on his shoulder and your hands curled up on his chest. He runs his palm down your hair, soothingly, his other arm secure around you.

You do not know how long you stand there. Long enough he stops catching his pinky on errant curls. Soon he is smoothly running his fingers down your hair, a gentle rhythm that lulls you to drowsiness even while standing on your feet.

“Come on,” Hyunjin says when he sees your drooping eyelids.

You blink to attention, looking at him questioningly. He gives you a quick smile then takes your hand. To your surprise, he leads you to his bedroom. The lights are off but the blinds are open and an ocean of blue moonlight floods the room. It is bright enough you can make your way around his bed without stubbing any toes.

While he folds back the bedcovers, you stop at his desk, brow crinkling at the scraps littering his work space. His canvas depicts something floral, half-painted and oversaturated but clearly a bundle of flowers. The rough sketches scribbled in the margins of his drafts do not depict flowers. They are little portraits, some doodled distractedly with wiggly lines, and others more precisely drawn, painstakingly, almost lovingly.

That’s me, you think, looking at the woman who overwhelms his art. It must be. The unmistakable cascade of curls makes it irrefutable. But the likeness is far too flattering to bear your full resemblance. This girl is extremely pretty, even if she does have your quirky, lopsided smile. Either Hyunjin has met your better looking doppelganger, or… this is simply how he sees you.

“This is your room,” you say instead of that drawing is me. It would be embarrassing if he denied it. It would be even more embarrassing if he confirmed it.

“Ha-ha, yes,” Hyunjin says, none-the-wiser. He is arranging pillows for you. By the time he looks your way, you are facing the bed. He beckons you over. “Come on,” he says. “Like the old days. It’ll make everything better. I promise.”

Your heart is working overtime in its rushing and pounding. You shuffle to the bed, smiling your quirky smile then feeling even more feverish, thinking about him having your smile memorized. Oh dear, why is that so deeply embarrassing? It should be a compliment. Maybe it is because no one else ever looks at you that closely, at least not with such affection.

You are not good with attention. You were bullied for your peculiarities quite badly in childhood. Invisibility became something you sought, because the alternative was always much worse. Attention meant derision. If someone was paying attention to your half-smiles or awkward reactions, it was for the express purpose of mocking them.

When you were ten years old, Hyunjin and his family moved in next door. Those ramshackle houses, long weathered and much loved, leaned towards each other as if magnetized. At the closet joining, the sill of your bedroom window touched his.

An elderly widow previous owned his house. She had a puppy who would scamper up to that window. You were quite devastated to learn a boy would be replacing the dog. Boys and dogs were both slobbery creatures, but at least puppies could fetch.

You were resolved to ignore your new neighbours. You spared a fleeting glance at the moving van then occupied yourself with a book.

A few hours later, your peace was forever disturbed. A toy car flew in your window and landed at your feet. You popped your curly head over the sill to face a dark-haired, dimple-cheeked boy.

“Meet me downstairs,” he said. He did not wait for an answer, dashing away before you could even blink at him.

You picked up the toy car and marched downstairs, determined to return it and explain to this boy, in no uncertain terms, that he was not allowed to throw things in your window, that he could have hit your head or one of your dolls, and unless he was prepared to offer financial compensation he should keep his cars to himself.

The second your feet touched the lawn, he was there. He grabbed your hand and dragged you off, already prattling about where he came from and where he was starting school and his favourite food and – everything. You did not speak for a whole ten minutes.

“My name is Hyunjin,” he finally said, after regaling you with the detailed events of his decade-long life. “What’s yours?”

You told him. You also returned his toy car but you could no longer remember the script for your lecture. He smiled at you, took your hand, and raced off again, towing you behind him.

Hyunjin was very loved, even as a child. It never occurred to him that someone might not like him. He made friends so effortlessly. His confidence was easy, his gravitas electrifying even at that age.

His congeniality was infectious and you found yourself reciprocating his enthusiasm. He was a natural showman and a creative visionary even at that age, coming up with detailed games of pretend with very involved storylines. You ran amok in your yards, dressed in your costumes, and at night you giggled at your windows, close enough that if you stretched out every finger you could clasp hands.��

Climbing across that meager gap was an obvious inevitability. When you were teenagers, your parents expressly forbade spending the night unsupervised. The boy-girl dynamic concerned them despite your ardent protestations that it was not like that. It just meant you got good at sneaking around.

You sit on his bed now, remembering the many nights you curled up together just like this. You would talk about utter nonsense and you would talk about your deepest thoughts, at least until the sound of your father’s footsteps sent Hyunjin hurtling back towards the window.

There are no interruptions now. You lay down beside him. You squeak when he tugs you across the bed, pulling you closer to him. You find yourself clinging to him, like you are suspended in that blue ocean of moonlight and he is your only life preserver. He does not seem to mind, wrapping his arm around you, fingers tracing circles down your spine.

“Your research will be fine,” he says. “I wish I could help with those things, but I’m not smart like you are. You’ll figure it out, okay, baby?”

You hope he does not notice how the pet name makes you shiver. It really is quite unfair. How is a person meant to maintain verisimilitude if Hwang Hyunjin is calling them baby so nonchalantly?

The flattery brings discomfort so you deflect. “I’m not that smart,” you say. “I’m just pathetic enough to waste my life in a stack of books.”

You concede the self-deprecation is fishing for reassurance. You burrow yourself deeper at his side.

“Hey,” he says sharply, tugging on a lock of hair so you look up at him. He tsks and shakes his head, wisps of red hair appearing dark in the moonlight and falling into his face as he gazes at you. “Don’t talk about my girl like that,” he says with another playful tug. “You know what happens when people do that.”

You find yourself smiling despite yourself. Because, yes, Hyunjin has often defended you. One time, when you were about fifteen, you were at his house with him and his school friends. You were all in the yard and you excused yourself to wash your hands. You returned just in time to see Hyunjin backhand one of the boys. The boy stumbled then swung back. Soon everyone was trying to pull the pair of them apart while they bit and kicked and swung at each other.

When everyone went home, you and Hyunjin sat on his bed. You were cleaning a nasty cut on his cheek, where the other boy’s ring broke skin.

“Stop that now,” you said, because he was dramatically hissing and cringing while you rubbed ointment in his wound. “You brought this on yourself,” you scolded him. “I hope you learned your lesson. There is absolutely no argument worth escalating to that degree of violence, you understand?”

“There is,” he said, pouting.

“No.” You pinched his arm and he yelped. “There isn’t.”

“This time there was,” he said. Your mouth opened with a ready retort, but he interrupted, “It was you.”

There was a moment of silence, your hand still on his cheek. He was pouting into the distance and avoiding your eyes.

“What was me?” you asked after a beat.

“He called you strange,” Hyunjin said. “And other things. I told him to stop and he didn’t. So I made him stop.”

It honestly never occurred to you that someone might stand up for you. You hardly even defended yourself, long since resigned to the reality that some people were just not nice. You were stunned into silence at your friend’s confession. Only when he looked at you, a tentative sideways glance, did you clear your throat and nod.

“Well,” you said. “I am strange. If you’re going to get into a fight, then next time make it about something worthwhile.”

He smiled. You smiled back.

You are quite certain you fell in love that day. Curling up in his arms felt different after that. You felt flustered and feverish, though you hid it very well. You could not bear the thought of losing his friendship and, besides, it was such a cliché. You at your nicest still looked like the before shot of every romance movie makeover and he got stopped by model scouts while lounging in his sweatpants. Cliché indeed. That story never ended well. You could not abide by it. It was better to repress and deny those feelings.

You are laying on his chest now, listening to his heartbeat, yours skipping erratically in your chest. You think your affection has only grown more over the years, despite your effort to quell the brunt of it. Those efforts seem ridiculous in the calming midnight blue, this comfortable little haven with no reality beyond the perimeter of the bed. Your thigh drifts over his naturally, your bodies angled to each other. He continues stroking your back.

“Please don’t say those things again,” he says, his voice gentler in the calming quiet.

“Sorry,” you grumble.

“So many people admire you,” he continues. “I… I do. I know I’m a dumbass and my opinion isn’t worth much… but I think you’re the best. You know that, right?”

“Yes,” you say in a weak voice, feeling watery again. You sniff. “And you’re not a dumbass. Your opinion means a lot.”

His hand slides up and dives under all that hair, then he cups the nape of your neck. You hide your face in his shoulder when he pulls you even closer. Your palm is over his heart. You feel the racing thrum.

“Were you having nightmares?” he asks, because he knows you too well.

“Yes,” you admit. “The usual stress dreams.”

“Poor baby,” he says, massaging your neck. “I wish there was something I could do.”

Keep touching me like that, you almost say, your frankness compelling you to blurt that vulnerable truth. That his touch feels so good it makes you forget all your insecurities and grievances. You will think clearly when he lets go, but right now his deft massage loosens the tension in your neck and shoulders. You feel yourself go lax against him, limbs like jelly, and warmth spreading from somewhere low and deep within you.

Your hand leaves his chest. Dreamy and absent-mindedly, you reach to touch him like he is touching you.

All you do is tuck some hair behind his ear, then trail your fingers ever so lightly down the side of his neck. It is barely a caress.

Despite the lightness of the touch, you feel his reaction. Quick and unquestionable, his breath catches like he is surprised and his whole body jerks toward you. Your leg is still thrown over his middle. You can feel how fast he gets hard.

Men just do that, you think, even while remembering your ex-boyfriend did not react that way, not that fast, and not to that kind of touch. You try to reason with yourself regardless, coming up with a million biological reasons why your best friend is getting turned on. It has absolutely nothing to do with you wrapping around him in bed wearing nothing but a t-shirt and panties and tickling sensitive places on his neck.

No. It must be something else.

Feeling awkward, you lift your head to deflect. You force a smile and a weak laugh.

“You cannot judge me in the morning,” you say. “I am going to look awful. My hair is going to be standing up in ten different directions. You must promise me right now you will be gentlemanly and not deride me for the untameable monstrosity that latches onto my head overnight. Do you promise?”

He replies in a most ungentlemanly manner.

He kisses you.

His hand still cups your nape. He pulls you close. His lips are so full and his mouth so warm. You must seem limp in comparison, so shocked that you just lay there, mouth and eyes wide open. It is considerably more difficult to convince yourself this is not what it seems, that it has nothing to do with you. Unless he is in immediate need of CPR. Perhaps he is seeking resuscitation because he is feeling lightheaded.

That is ridiculous. It is you who is light-headed, eyes closing as you succumb to the dizzying dark. He takes the opportunity to deepen the kiss, opening his mouth against yours.

For all that his kiss is very thorough, it is not overly demanding. He coaxes rather than takes, all slow seduction as his lips take yours, as he sucks your bottom lip then licks at your open mouth. He swallows down your gasp.

It feels like his hands are everywhere. In your hair one moment then around your waist the next. You think you are floating but then you are being pressed into the pillows. When you open your eyes, he is half on top of you, propping himself up on one arm while his other hand tilts your face up.

A stuttering thought dances on your lips, your eyes wide and breath short. Is this real? This cannot be real. Can it?

That bemused thought, tangled in your breath, dissolves into a surprised whine – a pretty, mewling sound that you did not know was inside you. You have never made that noise, not once, not even alone.

Hyunjin draws it out of you, gracefully manoeuvring himself, his thigh pressed between yours. He nudges your legs apart, somehow spreads your thighs with a gentle push of his hips. Your shirt rides up over your belly and you feel so hot and flushed, realizing you are barely clothed. Somehow, before now, it did not truly occur to you. It was a mere observation as you fumbled through your various anxieties.

Now it is all you can think about it, how vulnerable you are, how little there is between you. You gather fistfuls of his t-shirt when he presses against you, when he keeps your thighs open with his own and brings your bodies together. You make a surprised sound, embarrassed because you are so wet and so hot where he is so hard and touching you. A million nerves come to life under his weight, sending sparks shooting to every extremity. It is a lot. It is so much. Too much?

“Hyunjin,” you rasp, clutching his shirt so tightly that your hands are shaking. “Wait.”

He stops immediately, holding himself above you.

He is out of breath, his chest moving as quickly as yours. His hair is as dishevelled for once, though it makes him look ruggedly sexy. There is already a sheen of perspiration on his hairline. His heart is thundering where you touch his chest.

“Okay?” he asks, breathlessly.

You nod, taking a few deep breaths before your voice is under control. “I just… overwhelmed… I think…”

It all happened so fast. One moment you were thinking about how he would never want you that way, and then suddenly he was kissing you like it was the only thing keeping him alive.

Hyunjin is something of a rakish libertine, but his partners are always so enthusiastic and friendly, all his pursuits fully consensual even in their brevity. He would never use and discard someone. He would certainly never use you. But your heart is brimming with emotions and this is causing them to bubble and boil over. You cannot, under any circumstances, be physical with him and just move on. You do not work like that.

You have written papers, won awards for your ability to string sentences together. You cannot find two words to put together right now. Nothing to explain why you have to stop, how you do not want to stop, how desperately you love him, why you want him. Why is it so hard to say? Is it hard for everyone or is this another peculiarity of yours? It is always so hard to tell.

You close your eyes and catch your breath. He gives you space, laying down beside you while catching his own breath. He runs a hand through his hair, smoothing it back.

You look at each other at the same time.

“I still want to sleep here,” you say. You hope the words are enough. You are not upset. You still want his company.

He nods. “Of course,” he says, his voice rough in a way you have never heard before. It sends an electric shock through your body, igniting between your legs. You push your shirt down when his gaze wanders there and he swallows, hard. He lays flat on his back and closes his eyes, his lips moving like he is murmuring to himself. You think he might be counting.

You lay back as well, looking at his handsome profile then up at the ceiling. You are not sure that counting will slow the race of your heart or the muddled mess of your mind. You try anyway, backwards from one-hundred.

You are asleep before fifty.

You wake to a predictable mess of hair. You yawn and stretch and scratch your head.

Then you remember why your hair is a mess. Why your bonnet is on the floor in a different room. That you are in Hyunjin’s bed and last night—

You look at his side of the bed. The shape of his body indents the sheets and the space is still warm. He must have just left. Your heart is already pounding like it wants to leap out of your chest. It does not feel like the healthiest way to the start the day.

You are not sure if you are giddy or terrified. How do other people cope with the sheer inundation of sensation that is wrought by desire for another person? How are you expected to carry it inside of you, all day every day, with absolutely no reprieve? How on earth are you expected to walk into the next room and start a conversation with a man who had his tongue in your mouth last night, especially when that man holds a lifetime of friendship in his hands?

At least the video you sent was an honest accident. Verisimilitude will do you no good here. There will be no pretending it did not transpire.

You should have just exploded when you had the chance.

You slide out of bed and cross the room. You poke your head out the door. The bathroom door is closed and you can hear the shower running. You take the opportunity to scurry across the apartment, back to your temporary room where you close the door then slide down it.

You turn yourself into a boneless lump on the floor. Then you huff and stand.

Something will need to be done. Conversations will need to be had. That is simply the rub of it. If he clarifies it was all a physical reaction, you will politely inform him that such a dynamic will be impossible to pursue. If he claims it was because he likes you the way you like him –

It doesn’t matter. That will not happen. You convince yourself of this, running several scripts through your head as you get yourself dressed for the day. You have a conversation with your reflection in the mirror, making some very good points to the abstract Hyunjin of your imagination. He is very compliant. If only real people could stick to your pre-determined scripts the way their imaginary counterparts do.

You stand in front of the mirror, assessing your appearance one last time. Your hair is neat as possible, the more unruly ringlets pinned back. You are wearing a modest sweater and a long skirt. You slip into your shoes and finally leave your room. You hope Hyunjin is still home. You want to talk to him while the script is fresh in your mind and your appearance is composed.

But then you see Hyunjin, making his morning coffee, also dressed for the day. He is wearing all black, shirt and suit jacket and trousers and boots, with a sparkling slash of a silver necklace. His make-up is breath-taking, severe but beautiful. It leaves you slack-jawed. He looks sleek and sexy, but still this side of rebellious with his vibrant red hair and dark make-up.

You cannot help but stare, thoroughly looking him over before you blurt, “Wow. Why do you look so good today?”

A surprised little laugh bursts out of him, almost like a yelp

“I’m taking some photos today.” His gaze is very intense. Or maybe it is the make-up. It makes your heart palpitate regardless, dark eyes fixed so resolutely on you as he smiles and says, “Thank you. You look lovely, pretty girl.”

“Nonsense,” you say quickly. “I look no different than usual.”

“You always look lovely,” he says without any hesitation.

“Be quiet,” you reply. He is already preposterously off-script.

It makes him laugh again. He covers his mouth politely, shaking his head as he pours his coffee. He offers you some but you decline. You want to speak your piece and be done with this awkward situation once and for all.

Hyunjin takes a sip of his coffee, looking at you over the rim of the cup.

This should be easy. You have the words prepared; all you have to do is say them.

“I have to go,” you say instead, because your good sense flitters into oblivion and takes your words with it.

Hyunjin chokes on his coffee, sputtering while you dash to the door. Your purse is sitting on the shoe rack so you snatch it. Your heart is racing like a prey animal, your predator a red-headed pretty boy wiping coffee off his chin as he stumbles after you. He says your name but you ignore him, fumbling around for your keys.

“I’ll be back after dinner,” you say. “Lots of research. Reading. You know how it is. I might lose track of time. We’ll talk later, yes? Yes. Okay. Goodbye.”

He reaches you when you open the door. You can see he wants to talk. You know you should talk. No good ever comes from prolonging the inevitable. But you suddenly cannot face him.

You know you are being cowardly. You know it is unkind because he might want answers too. But you are not good and open like him. You are shut off and shut down and shutting doors.

You stand in the hallway, the closed door between you. Your heart is still pounding. You take a deep breath then turn to leave. You are halfway down the corridor when you realize you need your work bag. Your purse has basic necessities but no study tools.

You stomp your foot, frustrated with yourself and this stupid emotional tempest. If only you were as cold-hearted as people said. But you feel everything with so much burning intensity that you fear it will burn you down to cinders.

You pace in the hallway for a few minutes. It accomplishes nothing but stalling for time, because you cannot go anywhere without your bag. You don’t even have your parking pass or library card. With a resigned sigh, you glumly unlock the door and step back into the apartment.

Fate has opted to spare you a chagrined return. Hyunjin is in his bedroom and does not hear you come in.

You hurry to your room. If you grab your bag and bolt, he might not even notice you returned at all.

Unfortunately, you are a disaster.

You were so frustrated yesterday, overstimulated and erupting at the slightest provocation. Then your bag strap had the audacity to catch on the doorknob, sending papers flying. In mature retaliation, you dumped all the contents of your bag on the floor. It was a mildly satisfying expulsion of frustration at the time. Now you want to shriek because it will take a few good minutes to organize and pack everything again.

You lean your door closed, leaving it cracked just a sliver. You plan another mental script, despite what little good it did last time, explaining to imaginary Hyunjin that you have deadlines and, yes, it is inconvenient, and, oh, maybe we should order take-out for dinner, yes, because everything is normal between us and no one needs to grapple with the onward progression of time and the subsequent shifting relationship dynamics therein—

You hear a creak. You pause, kneeling by the door, holding a stack of papers. You peer through the sliver to see Hyunjin, sighing to himself as he ambles across the room and plops down on the couch. He leans forward, elbows on his knees, scrolling on his phone.

You find yourself once more arrested by the sight of him. He looks so beautiful but also starkly masculine, sophisticated but dangerous. A gentleman and a bad boy and every other dreamy amalgamation of boy crushes.

He tucks some hair behind his ear and you feel hot, remembering how you touched him just the same, remembering the reaction it garnered.

You fantasize about a braver version of yourself, someone brash and confident enough to approach him. He would look up at you with those smoky eyes, curious but wanting. You would touch him, that same simple touch, and he would rear up and kiss you with abandon once more. You would not even need a conversation because action would speak for itself.

Instead you are peering through cracks in doors, separated thanks to your own cowardice.

He touches his fingers to his chin. Whatever is on his phone is causing a great deal of deliberation. He turns off his screen and lays his phone facedown. His contemplation looks almost painful.

You want to comfort him because he is evidently perturbed by something. But the longer you wait, the more awkward it will be to reveal yourself.

He heaves a great sigh, doubling over, his face in his hands. He shakes his head. He looks truly forlorn, so you finally lay the papers down and try to think of something to say. You watch as he leans back, as he picks up his phone again. He stares down at the screen.

You are still psyching yourself up, preparing yet another useless script.

Then he turns up the volume.

You have rewatched the video you sent him more than once, assessing the details to torture yourself. Maybe, also, secretly, sometimes… imagining him watching it. Then shaking your head and turning it off, because he said himself it made him feel bad and nothing else. So that was impossible.

So why is he watching it now?

Because he is. Unmistakably. You know the sound of your own voice. You know the sounds in that video. You sit there, wide-eyed, staring at him as he stares at you – the you in the video, the you in white satin, the you moaning and touching yourself, fucking yourself while you thought of him.

He puts the phone on his knee, not moving his eyes from the screen as he peels off his jacket and chucks it aside. You can only blink, stupefied. This does not feel real, just like that kiss. Except that kiss was real, this is real, and you are watching Hyunjin as he slouches back and parts his knees and cups his hand between his legs. He touches himself with those long fingers, fingers you imagined while touching yourself in the very video that has him captivated.

He picks up the phone to rewind, all while undoing his pants then reaching inside.

You realize he is about to get his dick out, right here, right in front of you, completely unwittingly, and that snaps you back to reality. Far too quickly, because you make a surprised noise.

He freezes and looks up, first to the front door, then to your bedroom door. You make eye contact very briefly.

Then you slam the door shut.

You do the only logical thing.

You do not go to the library. Hyunjin leaves for his photography session and you pace your bedroom about a dozen times, then you sit down and write. You make a chronological notation of every emotional turning point in your friendship. You chart the data and sketch a few rough diagrams. You arrange all the appropriate paperwork and laminate a few important spreadsheets. Then you clip them all in a binder and pick up your phone and think of how to succinctly summarize three hours worth of deliberation.

The facts fall thusly:

You accidentally sent your best friend a sexually explicit video of yourself.

You granted him permission to watch it.

He watched it.

You caught him in a compromising position with it.

You made a spreadsheet.

Based on your calculations, the probability of Hyunjin returning your feelings seems fairly substantial. But you are not sure how to articulate any verdict based on the facts presented. Your spreadsheets contain data, not a resolution.

Hyunjin is a romantic and soulful creature. You wooed your last boyfriend with a portfolio but he was nothing like Hyunjin. That courtship was an amicable affair and little more. The break-up was cordial and tearless. You shook hands then walked in opposite directions.

A memory comes to mind.

You and Hyunjin. Starting university together. Back when the world first offered itself to your young adult selves.

One day he skipped class and you went to check on him, only to find him curled up in bed in his baggiest sweatshirt, sniffling away. He was blonde then, a burst of starlight in every room he occupied. It was so strange and so wrong seeing him so grey and dejected.

He laid his head in your lap and let you pet his hair. It took some cajoling to get the story out of him. His secondary major was dance studies and he spent months preparing a showcase. Apparently his instructor did not offer him the same thorough critiques he gave other students. You tried to say that was a good thing, but he insisted it was not.

“He doesn’t think I’m worth improving,” he said. “He told me I’ll get by because of my looks. That’s the only thing I have. No one really likes me or thinks I’m worth anything.”

“I know it’s hard because you are a natural drama queen, but don’t be dramatic, Hyunjin,” you said. “Plenty of people like you just fine. They adore you, in fact. And you are very talented. It is not your fault if this one person cannot see past appearances.”

“It’s not just one person,” he said. He sat up to wipe his tears.

You sat awkwardly beside him, hands twitching with the desire to do something helpful but at a complete loss. You never intentionally sought comfort, keeping your feelings to yourself, so you were bad at giving it.

You put a hand on his shaking shoulder. “Hyunjin,” you said, imploringly.

“No,” he said, miserable, his face all scrunched up. “Everyone leaves me when I’m not what they want, and I’m never what they want, because I’m just a worthless face and nothing else.”

It was very strange to hear him express such a sentiment. Hyunjin was always surrounded by doting crowds. But you supposed he had his share of heartbreak as a consequence of knowing so many people. He gave away his heart so easily and it was sometimes returned in pieces. It did not stop him from trying again, which you always commended. You wished you knew how to express that.

“We’re friends, are we not?” you finally asked. “I care for you very dearly.”

“You do?” he asked. Even his voice sounded wet. You grabbed a tissue and shoved it at him.

“Of course I do,” you said. “Though statistically no one can be truly unique in every capacity, and friendships and relationships are often founded by chance and choice, I nonetheless consider your amalgamation of parts to be quite magnificent, and I find your character irreplaceable. You are, indeed, very handsome, but also witty and playful, dramatic to your detriment but nonetheless entertaining, creative and soulful, and you have a defensive streak and natural bite, but a fragile heart beneath that, and I rather admire that. I am afraid I will like you forever, regardless of our proximity or friendship status. Such is the nature of affection. Why are you still crying?”

You were immensely confused when your consolation generated more tears, but you accepted your best friend was an emotional riddle.

Hyunjin has many layers. You have always known this. You told him as much. You have done him a terrible disservice by assuming the worst, that he would be shallow in regards to you. He has always exhibited a fondness for your own depths.

It is more difficult to accept him finding your surface just as attractive. It seems conclusive, though. There is no shortage of sexual content in the world. He could have watched anything. So it is safe to say, touching his dick while watching you fuck yourself might have been a demonstration of a certain level of attraction. Possibly.

You sit on your bed, staring at your phone. You jump when it buzzes with a text alert. You open it, your heart skipping beats when you see it is from Hyunjin.

I’m sorry for this morning, he writes.

I can stay at Felix’s place until you’re comfortable okay.. Please just tell me

i deleted the video now. and the message where you sent it. I should have done that right away

I know you said you didn’t mind but still. I should have just

just done it all differently

The messages come flying in one right after the other. You imagine him a mirror to you, sitting somewhere, slouched over his phone. Hair dishevelled from jamming his fingers through it. A shaky breath on his lips.

You look up, picturing him across from you. You want to reach across the space between you, stretch out every finger, and clasp his hand. You never want to let go.

Your phone buzzes again. You read his words and your heart floods with more than desire. Rich with sentiment, it leaves you more breathless than a kiss.

you mean everything to me.

He is still typing. The ellipses in the corner flashes. You suspect he will send you an endless stream of consciousness if you do not reply soon.

You look at your binder of data, then you look at your phone, then you look at your binder, then you look at your phone. You take a breath. The decent and logical approach would be patience. To study everything you have compiled. To see if he concurs. To communicate the best way to move forward, what that looks like, and how it should happen.

You are not someone who intentionally takes risks. You are not wild and spontaneous. You are not brash or confident. You are not sexy.

Verisimilitude, you remember. Act like it is true, maybe it will be.

You type.

Hello, Hyunjin.

His ellipses disappears.

It is true. I sent that video by accident. But I did grant you permission to watch it.

You open your photo album. There is the video, so inconspicuous, one of a dozen. It is not your most extravagant nor the longest. You were too eager in the moment to prolong anything. You could film it better if you did it again. But it is nonetheless the video that started this whole thing.

Even though you were not trying, the video turned him on. You are hot all over, remembering how he warred with himself before submitting. You remember the amorous look on his face, how desperately he watched you while touching himself. He could not rip his gaze away for even a moment.

You click on the video. You send it with your next message.

This is for you.

You can keep it.

Then you take a chance and write, I want you to keep it.

There is a long moment with no reply. Or maybe it feels longer because you are holding your breath. You exhale with a whoosh and a breathless laugh when he finally replies.

fuck.

are you trying to kill me

You smile, though even that gets you hot, remembering your portrait doodled in the margins of his art. A lightness fills your heart, recalling that, picturing him now. You can imagine his wide, startled eyes, expressive dark brows lifting as he stares at his phone.

No, you write. You are not sure how to respond to a flirtatious overture so you opt for simplicity. You are not one to colour your statements with unnecessary artifice so you state your intentions without colourful obfuscations. To clarify, you write, I fully consent to you masturbating to it. It is only fair. I was thinking of you while I made it.

You wonder if he is still at the photography studio. You can picture him sitting behind the camera, waiting for the next set, his make-up touched up, his black ensemble pristine, and his face humorously contorted.

so you are trying to kill me, he writes.

and i thought you weren’t the unprovoked licentious content type....

You are fairly certain he is playing with you, but texts are even harder to construe than verbal tones. You tilt your head, staring at the message, imagining his voice. The little ellipses flashes in the corner, then you smile when his next message comes through.

I’m just teasing you baby.

He knows you so well. Years of friendship have fortified the affection between you. You were so foolish to ever think otherwise. Of course he can picture you like you can picture him. You feel as if he is holding you in those steady hands, comforting you with that loving touch as the tension leaves your body. You feel safest curled against him and you always have. The only difference now is he calls you baby and your heart does a flip.

I see, you write. Well.

Technically that was not wholly unprovoked. It was very much within the context of our discussion.

This one, however, is entirely unprovoked.

You send another video. This one you filmed a while ago, back in your own bedroom at your townhouse. You are wearing a sweater he bought you. The gift was touching because there was no occasion. He saw it and thought of you so he got it. And he knows your tastes so well, your fit and size and style. He knows you prefer a more modest ensemble in the world.

This video is not modest. You filmed the sweater from every angle then laid down, wearing nothing else. You held a vibrator between your legs and arched your back and filmed yourself, every whimper and sigh and breath. You stopped just before coming, dropping your phone to focus on your orgasm.

You send the video and wait. His ellipses appears and disappears then he finally writes:

fuck.

You flop back on the bed, biting your lip as his rather frantic messages fly in one after the other.

god. pretty girl. you know i'm obsessed with you right?

jesus we did all this backwards. i wanted to be cool when i told you but I’m a stupid mess.

fuck I’m about to have my photo taken

hiding in the bathroom because christ

what are you doing to me

where are you right now??

After all that, you simply answer, In bed. You realize it sounds suggestive only after the fact, but you do not retract it. Nerves gather inside you, blending into adrenaline and anticipation. You know him well but you are not sure what he will say now. This is new territory. It is exhilarating. You do not remember feeling this way with your ex. He was too much like you, so there was nothing to discover between you.

Hyunjin is so different but he fits with you like a puzzle piece, complimentary rather than contradictory. You feel sweltering hot, thinking he must reciprocate those feelings. Maybe he likes your hidden depths. Maybe he likes knowing it is all for him. He is romantic that way. So maybe he likes to see your articulate and intelligent self let go of inhibitions. Maybe you like it too, becoming a body and sharing it with him.

Show me, he writes, echoing that very sentiment.

Be polite, you reply, mostly to buy time while you temper your racing heart. It melts at his next words.

Please.

Show me you want me. want this. want us.

Pretty girl.

My girl.

Please.

Okay, you type. You are quivering but the sensation is not unpleasant. Last night was overwhelming, so much at once, but this you can do. This you want to do. There is a breath of distance, so it is a step rather than a leap. You are no stranger to aiming a camera at yourself.

Before you prepare, you take a breath and write, You show me too.

You get an idea. While he formulates his reply, you jump out of bed and hurry to the front room. He has an array of leather jackets hanging by the door, because of course he does. You rifle through them, looking for the one he wears the most. It smells like him, that rich cologne, a hint of his hair product. If your knees were not already knocking, it would send you swooning. You clutch it to your chest as you make your way back to your room.

You close the door, as if it matters, but this is between you and Hyunjin, the rest of the world insignificant.

You strip down to your underwear then don the jacket. You keep your hair pinned so you do not look like a mess, then you arrange yourself on the bed as neatly as you can. You try not to overthink, even though overthinking is your speciality. You pretend this is a video like any other.

Except the scent of his masculine cologne surrounds you. He is inside your mind, completely and irrevocably.

You open your phone to a new message, a video from him. The lighting is dark in the small studio bathroom, backlit in red. It makes it all the more erotic.

You have never unwittingly clenched. You did not even know you could be so aroused that your body would form a mind of its own. But you are, and it does, pussy very literally throbbing as you watch the video. His artist hand, long fingers curling around the hard curve of his fly. He lowers the zipper and you clench again, making that meek little whimper.

Apparently you like watching videos just as much as making them. You are a mess by the time he gets his dick out.

You turn up the volume to hear his breathing. You know he has to keep his voice down, but it makes his breathy little fuck all the hotter.

Oh Hyunjin, you write. Your vocabulary otherwise fails. There is no other word.

Yes please, he writes.

My pretty girl.

Say my name.

Your next sound is embarrassing and guttural. You are a little glad you were not filming yet.

You clear your throat and position yourself, holding the camera above you. You start recording. With your free hand, you touch the collar of the jacket. You rake your teeth over your bottom lip then lower the camera. The jacket falls open just enough to hint at every curve in contains. You skim down your body. You touch yourself and you are so wet and so ready that you cannot help but make another noise. Unlike him, you are free to be noisy, so you do not restrain yourself.

It feels so different, knowing someone will watch this. You have never been so wet in your life. You cannot even tease yourself, so desperate that you quickly push two fingers inside you. Oh, dear, god, you really sound filthy, ridiculously wet as you fuck yourself with jerky little thrusts.

“Hyunjin,” you murmur, the name that has often perched on your tongue while you do this. It feels so good to say it out loud.

You send him that much, continuing to stroke and fuck yourself while the video sends. You close your eyes and stimulate your clit, rubbing and circling, finding a rhythm. You need it. You need him.

Your phone buzzes and you turn your head. You open the message. You clamp your thighs around your hand, your pussy clenching around your fingers as you read his words.

God I wanted to film it but I just came all over myself

baby you are everything

I wish I was beside you I need to say so many things

god..

pretty girl if I ask so politely will you come for me? will you let me see your pretty face when you come? Please.

You do not type a reply because it is too difficult with one hand, and you will not stop touching yourself, not when you are so close.

It is just a few flicks of your thumb to open the camera again. You frame your face and hit record. You come only seconds later, releasing such a desperate cry as you unravel. It is so much yet not enough. You thoughtlessly shove your own fingers in your mouth, closing your eyes, imaging it is his hand, his wet fingers dragging over your tongue. You want to taste him. You want to choke on him. You just want to feel him so much that the rest of the whole world will fall away. You don’t need to be anyone else. You don’t want anyone else.

You say his name again. Your pussy clenches as if already trained to react to it. You stop filming and send it, breathing hard in the aftermath.

As your adrenaline dwindles, you feel a modicum of embarrassment, but no regrets. Your logical brain does make a grudging return, however. As much as you want him, you know if you rush into things that you will end up balking again. You need a proper conversation. You need spreadsheets. You need to do it his way and your way too.

But for now, you smile, giggling to yourself as you read his replies. Half of his texts are unintelligible gibberish, the other half completely and utterly worshipful.

Nonsense, you finally write.

I’ll come home right now and prove it to you, he says without hesitation.

Except by right now I mean in two hours, because I caught the train out here and it doesn’t leave until then.

Then you’re all mine.

You laugh in spite of yourself, curling up in his jacket. You take in a breath, the scent of him. You type.

I’ve been yours for a long time. I can wait two more hours.

Then… can we talk?

Yes, he answers quickly. Absolutely. I have so much I want to say to you.

Me too, Hyunjin.

He caught the bus to the train station but you offer to pick him up. He enthusiastically agrees, evidently eager to see you again. You find yourself laughing, such a light in your chest that it cannot help but spill out. You are somehow both anxious and excited, but so happy that you do not mind.

When the details are settled, you lower your phone and look at your binder.

You have two hours. That is enough time to laminate a few more spreadsheets.

You tell yourself you will be resilient. You are notoriously stringent and a self-identified no-nonsense curmudgeon at the best of times. Given you have expelled the brunt of your sexual frustration, you figure there will be no problem. You will meet Hyunjin at the train station, you will come home, you will share a meal and have a conversation, and everything will go smoothly from there.

Except Hyunjin changed clothes. It is not anything extravagant by any means. He is in black jeans and a red shirt, his black dress shirt shrugged overtop. The wind tousles his hair just so, and his make-up has been redone, a little less severe but still so sharp. It is more casual than you expected, and somehow that undoes your perseverance.

You are gawking at him, staring through the car window as he strides over. He gets into the passenger seat like nothing is remiss, tossing his bag into the back. He is wearing heavy boots that thunk when he sits. He closes the door and looks over at you with a smile.

“Hi, pretty girl,” he says.

He is so atrocious at keeping to your script. Imaginary Hyunjin is much more accommodating.

“Hello, Hyunjin,” you say.

You sit there for a long time. It is getting dark outside, which makes it easy to forget you are in a parking lot outside a train station.

Then he has the audacity to be sweet, at such odds to his daring appearance. He looks so rebellious and you look so meek. He is all vibrant colours and dark slashes, while you are in a blazer and a long brown skirt. Your shirt is buttoned all the way up to your chin and, despite your best efforts, your hair has come unpinned. The wind has never been your friend.

You are certain you make a funny sight, but he is not laughing at all. His gaze is so affectionate but so warm, burning you up. You gaze back at him, your heart already skipping beats. Then he reaches out and tucks a loose curl behind your ear. You remember him doing that at the art gallery. He was looking at you then like he is looking at you now. You realize you have been such a fool.

You lean in at the same time. This kiss does not even pretend at patience. It is a hungry collision, his hand in your hair and yours on his chest. You make a wanting noise when his fingers hook through the curls at your nape and he tugs just a little, just enough to move your head where he wants it so he can deepen the kiss. He makes a noise too, something low and needy. He licks into your mouth, far too hot and far too dirty for a parking lot kiss.

You remember yourself, vaguely. You break the kiss with a gasp. Your fingers curl on his chest and his grip tightens in your hair. Your foreheads touch. The only sound in the car is your mutual rough breathing.

“Right,” you say, your voice raspier than you expected. “Um. We should. Go.”

He nods. But then he proves he is as evil as he looks, because he tilts your head and exposes your throat. He leans in, presses his full lips on that soft vulnerable skin and kisses it so delicately that your whole body is wracked with a shiver. He exhales, warm breath fluttering over your pulse. Then he finally lets go and leans back.

“Okay,” he says. “Let’s go home.”

Home. You have a discussion on that very subject upon arrival.

Prior to departure, you arranged your papers on the kitchen table. You deposit your take-out boxes alongside it, then sit down to eat and discuss.

He furrows his brow as he holds up a spreadsheet.

“Is this laminated?” he asks. “You brought a laminator with you?”

“Of course I brought a laminator with me,” you say unflinchingly. “What kind of question is that?”

He cracks a smile and nods, then waves you on. He listens diligently to your proposed contingency. You prepared index cards so you would not be distracted and led astray. You are glad you did, because when he finishes eating he just stares at you, and he still looks hungry, but not for sustenance.

You clear your throat and try to disregard this, but it is difficult. You unbutton the top button of your shirt to breathe a little easier and he looks at you with more voracious intensity than a single button warrants. You might as well have stripped down naked.

You suppose you already have, halfway. You swallow hard.

“Look,” you say, lowering your index cards to speak frankly. “The bottom line is this. I desire you greatly. I believe there is some reciprocation in this regard. But we are living under a shared roof temporarily and I fear this may cause us to progress faster than I am ultimately comfortable. I would like some longevity in our blossoming dynamic. You are very important to me, Hyunjin. I want us to succeed. I would feel more comfortable if we waited to sleep together, at least until I am back in my townhouse. That means no sharing a bed too. When I am back home, we can properly date, and see how this grows between us. What are your thoughts?”

“When will your place be ready again?” he asks. He is sitting back in his seat, arms crossed, looking thoughtful. You appreciate he is not grabbing at you or immediately trying to convince you otherwise.

You knew he would not pressure you. Regardless, you cannot help the skip in your bloodstream, the natural nerves that surface when he looks at you. You have known him for years. You wonder if these sensations will ever diminish. Present research dictates no.

“The last estimation was six more weeks,” you say.

He smiles. It soothes your heart. You stare at his hand as it crosses the table, as he gently laces your fingers together and squeezes. You blink up at him.

“If you asked me to wait a year, I would,” he says. “If you told me there were things you never wanted, we would make it work. I’ve waited years for you, baby. Six weeks is nothing.”

Goodness gracious. Exactly how is a person meant to be strict and curmudgeonly with this man? He really is the universal exception to every rule. You have just outlined your rubric and you are already considering breaking it.

“Kisses are okay,” you say, hot under your skin. Writing your flirtations was easier than speaking them. Your tone is brusque because you are bad at this, but it just makes him smile. “Maybe other things when the circumstances arise. But we will wait for the rest.”

He lifts your hand to his mouth and places a soft kiss on your palm, holding your gaze all the while. You are quite certain your insides turn to complete mush.

It occurs to you in bed.

You have long since said good night and retired for the evening. You pick up your phone and sigh. You are already skirting the edge of your rules, fully aware you are about to poke a sleeping beast but unable to resist. The realization plagues you, the subsequent questions burning in your chest.

And you are wet. So, so wet, and so, so needy. Because Hyunjin walked you to your bedroom door like a gentleman. Then he kissed you like a scoundrel. He leaned you against the door, his hand planted beside your head and the other holding your face. He kissed you long and slow, like he wanted to draw it out, like he did not want to say good night. Your hands were clasped together because you did not trust yourself to touch him. If you did, you would have dragged him into the bedroom and regretted it later.

But in the moment, it felt so right. You are certain that no kiss, ever, since the dawn of time, had ever felt as good as that one. He took his time with each gentle press, each touch of his tongue, each shared breath. Your chests rose and fell in tandem, your legs turning to jelly where you stood. He fiddled with that one undone top button. You would not have resisted him tearing them all open.

He did not. He kissed you slowly. He kissed you sweetly. With one last peck, he whispered, “Good night, pretty girl. Sleep well.”

You could not find your voice. You made a weak gurgling noise and nodded frantically. He smiled. You rather suspect he knew his effect on you, the rapscallion.

Now you are in bed, staring at the ceiling, thinking about something he said at dinner. You debate texting him. It will open a floodgate. You lower your phone a few times, but ultimately determine you will not sleep until you have settled your mind.

Hyunjin, you write, if you liked me for years, that means you were already inclined towards affection when I accidentally sent that video. Correct?

Correct, he answers with a little emoji face, one with a quirked eyebrow. Why do you ask…?

I was just wondering…

If when I saw you was your first time watching it.

The ellipses is there for a while. Your heart is pounding in your chest. You are certain this man is going to send you into cardiac arrest one of these days. Then you will finally explode at the most inopportune moment.

You sink into the bedsheets, pressing your legs together when his reply comes through.

Honestly… I watched it more than once. I did stop when you first sent it. even though it got me hard in seconds. then you said i could watch it.. and i honestly thought i was still dreaming.

You cannot help but laugh a little. You turn on your side, smiling as he types some more. Then his message comes through and you swallow, flush with heat.

I tried to answer. I tried to flirt with you. I tried to be funny. It all sounded stupid. Then I got back in bed and tried to think of something to say… but god.

god..

Baby what was I supposed to do? if I resisted that they would have made me a saint.

You laugh again. You marvel at his ability to make you smile and get you hot at the same time.

Did you masturbate to it? you ask. It sounds too frank to be seductive but you are not sure how else to pose the query.

You really don’t pull your punches, he says. You think you can somehow hear a smile in his words.

yeah baby, he writes. I did. More than once.

I see, you reply. Okay, thank you, I was just wondering. Good night.

The ellipses flickers again. You release a torrent of giggles into the blankets when he sends you a very tortured looking emoji.

This is going to be a long six weeks.

He is not wrong. It is simultaneously the longest, most arduous six weeks of your life, but also the fastest, the most lively, and the most fulfilling.

You spend the first week stealing kisses. He is good to you, respecting your boundaries. He never asks to share a bed and he does not initiate anything beyond your established desires. He leaves space for you, his arms always open, but he does not force you.

This is sufficiently more seductive than if he started yanking on your clothes in the corridor.

You are watching a movie one night. He puts an arm across the back of the couch but makes no further demand. You settle under that arm, nestling closer at your own pace. You are not watching the film, all your focus on him. He has a foot propped on the coffee table, his arms spread across the couch, and he bops his head along to the music. Of course, he does that even when the music stops, so you think he not paying attention either.

Eventually, you succumb to the butterflies in your belly. They flutter free with an exhale. You touch his cheek and turn his face. He requires little convincing, kissing you without a word.

His foot thumps onto the ground. You find yourself in his lap. You do not know how you lose your head around him. One second, you swear you are on solid ground, the next you are floating. Someone should study this phenomenon. You, yourself, have no idea how to parse its logic.

You straddle his lap, your arms wrapped around his neck. He is dressed in all black again, black jeans and a black t-shirt, his eyes still smudged with black eyeshadow. It makes him look so utterly devastating, his eyes so dark and searching.

It makes you bold, coming to life under the intensity of that gaze. It is like some subliminal message passes to something rooted deep inside you, something primal and animal that he plucks with ease.

You dive in for another kiss, burning too hotly under his gaze. He cups your head with both hands. He tosses little hairpins everywhere, grunting with displeasure when he finds them. When you are completely free, he groans, a deep and ravaging moan as he buries his fingers in your hair and pulls you close.

“Hyunjin,” you say, once more at a loss for any other word.

He cannot even manage that much, nothing but a guttural sound leaving his throat. It makes you melt against him. Your body really has a mind of its own these days. You find yourself rocking against him, making his breath catch.

He tugs your hair a little more viciously, thoughtlessly, so entangled that it cannot be helped. You make another ridiculous mewling sound that will embarrass you later, but in the moment it slips free.

He holds you in place, palm cupping your head, keeping you steady while he rolls his hips under you.

It makes you dizzy. Your mouth opens and your eyes close. You slowly rock back. You dig your nails into his shoulders and you are amazed it does not hurt him. But, then again, he is tugging your hair inadvertently and if that hurts you do not notice. The seam of your own pants presses deliciously against you, the hard line in his jeans grinding against the softest part of you, again and again and again.

“Oh,” you say, or rather sigh. Your shoulders shake and surprise thunders into your racing heart. You realize are going to come like this. “Oh. Ohh.”

“Yes,” he says, and holds you steady, and keeps rolling his hips until you come apart in his arms.

You slump against his chest after, resting your head on his shoulder. You can feel him flicking your hair out of his mouth, but he doesn’t complain. You are breathing hard, clinging to him, still surprised you did what you did.

Eventually you find a modicum of strength in your arms. You somehow push yourself upright. You deposit a single apologetic kiss to his shoulder, which is doubtlessly riddled with crescents from nail bites.

He looks at you with a smile, a little breathless himself but evidently pleased.

“You’re beautiful,” he says, so reverently you actually believe it. Instinct still compels you to argue, but you cannot find your voice to do so. You just make a little noise and look down at your hand on his chest.

His heart races under your palm.

You think you need to see him come too.

You were previously too nervous to strike the endeavour. You sexted again in bed the night before, but leaving him to his devices is different than taking matters into your own hands. Literally. You are not inexperienced, but he is certainly more experienced. It is another reason you cannot rush into things.

He does not rush you. You arrive at the moment in your own time. And in this moment, it stops mattering. His heart beats under your palm and he looks at you with such an outpouring of affection, it makes your own heart stutter. You are tingling with aftershocks, feeling so alive and vibrant with his eyes on you.

You trail your hand down his chest to his belt. His eyelashes flutter, surprise crossing his own face. His hand covers yours and he lifts a questioning brow. You nod and he lets you go.

You get his belt open with a little struggle. You are a prestigious academic decorated with multiple literary awards, but a belt stupefies you.

He lets you work, twisting a curl around his finger, smiling a lazy smile. You pry the belt open and get his fly down, satisfied when some of his cockiness dissipates as your touch overwhelms him. It is a good overwhelming, given the noise he makes as he rests his face on yours. He murmurs your name and presses kisses all over your face as you work him in your hand.

The jeans are thrown into the laundry hamper immediately after.

The second week is mostly comprised of your usual routines. You have both shirked some responsibilities, too busy flirting like horny prepubescents to get any work done. You eventually return to your books and make remarkable progress on your research project. Hyunjin edits the photos from his latest shoot, uploading them to his profiles and collecting his sponsorships.

You go to your favourite café. You accompany him to his favourite bar because it’s a trivia night and you enjoy it more than you anticipated. You return to the art exhibition then rehash your previous opinions over dinner.

Some moments feel like dates, like when he holds you hand or gets the door or you dare to kiss his cheek in public. Some moments feel like the comfortable friendship you have long enjoyed, and for that you are glad. Gaining Hyunjin as a boyfriend would mean little if you lost him as a friend.

But he is still your Hyunjin.

He just puts his tongue in your mouth now.

The couch becomes a site of utter debauchery. It is the apartment’s no man’s land, given the beds have been relegated to solitary confinement. It really is for the best. For now. You will enjoy yourself more when you are truly ready.

Until then, the couch is subject to repeated episodes of defiling.

You and Hyunjin sit down with the intention of reading your own books, but they are both on the floor and you are on your back and Hyunjin is on top of you. It is not unlike a few weeks ago, when he stole your book and pinned you down. It feels like a lifetime since then. You never would have imagined yourself in this situation for real.

But it is real. You know that, because every nerve in your body is alive and shooting sparks. You make little moans, weaving your fingers in his bright red hair as he kisses you deeply. His jeans are blue today. You are in a long skirt. It makes it a little easier for the material to fall on its own, gathering around your thighs as he presses against you.

You take his hand and guide it up your skirt, resting it on your inner thigh. When he squeezes the soft flesh, you arch your back. A shaky please leaves your lips, breathing the word against his own.

He nods quickly, thumb stroking a circle high on your inner thigh. “What do you want, baby?” he asks.

“Hand,” you say, thinking about that video of him unzipping his fly, how many times you have gotten yourself off to his perfect hand sliding into the frame. His deft and nimble fingers, so precise for his artistic crafts. You blink up at him, hoping you do not look so dishevelled that it is ridiculous.

He clearly likes what he sees. He reaches under your skirt to slip your panties down and off, shoving them in his back pocket so they are not lost. His jeans have a long chain on the hip that he pushes out of his way when he kneels upright on the couch. He guides your thighs apart and angles your hips up, your thighs resting on his.

“Sorry,” you say when he touches you, because you are already so wet from just kissing.

“Sorry?” he asks in a rough voice, very lightly touching you, gathering all that desire on his fingertips and making you shudder. “For what?”

“Just… so… ready…”

It sounds ridiculous to say out loud. He must agree because he laughs incredulously. But you do not have time to feel ashamed because he slides two fingers inside you, your body offering no resistance to him. Then he starts curling up and putting pressure on your inner walls in a way that makes your head spin.

“Poor baby,” he says, his other hand sliding up your waist, holding you steady. “What should we do about that?”

You are coming minutes later, your shirt half-off, your breasts mauled with hickeys and your pussy spasming around his fingers. It feels so good, you do it again, and he ends up coming before you even touch him once.

Next time, you are not on the couch, but standing by the front door, preparing to go out. He is fully dressed with his leather jacket and boots, but you are missing a sweater and one shoe. He is standing behind you, your cheek pressed to the door as he works his hand under your skirt. You cant your hips up and back, grinding against him while he finger-fucks you.

You come so hard your knees buckle. Fortunately, he realizes what it is about to happen and catches you. He does not slow down, though, the bastard, and you keep coming, balanced in his arms.

You are halfway to the ground when you are satisfied. He puts you down gently. And maybe it is being half-dressed at his feet, maybe it his boots or his belt or that leather jacket, or maybe it is the way he looks down at you, but your mouth waters and you swallow hard.

“We don’t need to—” he starts, but you interrupt by opening his belt. You are much better at unbuckling it now, hardly wrestling with the leather at all.

You are acutely aware that you are not very good at giving oral. You are sensitive to sensation and it can be a bit much, but you like the noises he makes and the way he grabs your hair. You are certain he has had better, but you would not know from his reactions. He curses and sighs and groans, alternating between looking at you lovingly and ravenously.

He gets down on one knee after and cups your face and kisses you.

And that is just week two.

By week six, an amendment has been made to the bedroom rule. You will not share a bed overnight, but the morning is a different matter entirely. When the sun is up, the day is starting, so there is nothing wrong with climbing into bed together to talk about the day.

To be fair, sometimes you do just talk.

Other times, like now, your shirt is pushed up to your breasts and his face is buried in your pussy. He is wearing boxers and nothing else, his face bare. You like to look at it, his soft eyes glancing up at you as you push his hair back.

Unlike you who still administers oral with something of a polite and fastidious air, he gets messy with it. You are both drenched when you come, your pussy and thighs a mess while he wipes his face on a discarded shirt.

“So,” he says. “About the townhouse?”

When you finally step foot in your townhouse again, it is an abominable mess. You stand in the foyer with your luggage, slack-jawed and already so overstimulated that you nearly start vibrating.

Hyunjin joins you a second later, carrying the rest of your bags. He knows better than to yank you around when you get like this, but he does guide you to the couch to sit you on a clean cushion. He gets you some water and makes you drink. It helps, marginally.

“Oh dear,” you finally say, an understatement.

You made dinner plans, mostly to dissuade you from desecrating the foyer before you had an opportunity to unpack your bags, but those plans are cancelled in light of all the work that needs doing to make the place habitable again. You are immensely glad there is no longer a river of water leaking out of your shower and into the living room, but the contractors were not overly kind regarding dust and debris, to say nothing of plain dust and dirt.

Your poor bookshelves have been so neglected. They are the first thing to get a good dusting.

It is not an impossible task, when all is said and done, but pizza delivery replaces a dinner out. Whatever plans for seduction you might or might not have had, all evaporate, because you are so exhausted from cleaning that you fall asleep on the couch before it even gets dark outside.

You wake with a start in the middle of the night. You dreamed about giant dust bunnies devouring your poor innocent bookshelves. It takes a minute to ground yourself in reality, your surroundings unfamiliar. You have grown so used to the spare bedroom at Hyunjin’s apartment that you forget your own bedroom for a sleepy moment. When you fully come to consciousness, you remember where you are.

Then you remember you fell asleep the couch, a half-finished plate of pizza in your lap. Hyunjin must have gathered you in his arms and put you to bed. The thought is a little touching but also embarrassing, because that was not the plan for tonight. You suppose your provisos merely outlined not sleeping together until you were in your townhouse, not that it was a requisite for moving back in, but you still miss his company.

You search around for your phone. He left it on your bedside table for you. It is not as late as you thought it was, probably because you fell asleep so early. You text him an apology. You assume he went back to his apartment but you are not sure if he is awake or asleep.

You always liked living alone, but you suddenly lament the empty space. You miss the comfort of another person just one room over. No, not just another person, but Hyunjin.

hey it’s okay, he texts back. you were tired. you should go back to sleep it’s late

I am unfortunately wide awake now.

Yeah me too.

Why are you so awake?

Thinking about you.

If you were not already wide awake, that would have done the job of waking you all the way. You sit up in bed, all your attention on your phone now. You type a reply.

Oh? What about me?

You are not sure if his tone is flirtatious or not. You are getting better at verbal cues but it is still impossible to read someone, even Hyunjin, over text. You cannot even read your own tone, uncertain if it comes across as flirtatious or just curious.

That I’m kinda glad you fell asleep.

Don't laugh at me.. but I think I am nervous

About sleeping with you

You expect any number of answers, but not that one. You struggle with a reply for a moment, not sure if he is seeking reassurance or he just wants to speak his mind. When he starts typing again, you decide to wait.

I know it sounds stupid.

We spent all this time waiting

And god I want to. my girl

I’m so scared of messing this up and letting you down.

Hyunjin, you finally type, before he can descend in a spiral. You told me you would wait a year, or that we would work something out for ourselves if it was necessary. Do you not think I would do the same for you?

The ellipses appears and disappears as he contemplates this. His answer comes a moment later, You’re right.

Of course I am, you reply. I always am.

You hear a laugh. It startles you so bad, you drop your phone on the floor. You snatch it up quickly as possibly and frantically type, Please tell me that is you laughing in my living room.

Oh yeah sorry I just slept on your couch.

This man will be the death of you one way or another, that much is for certain.

You frightened me half to death. I thought you left.

Ah sorry baby..

Do you… want me to come upstairs?

That restless heart of yours skips beats for another reason, a different type of fear, one not unlike his own. You are not sure how the night will progress, but you know one thing for certain, one thing that is true and will always be true: you want Hyunjin. You want him with you, and beside you, now and always.

Yes please, you write, then wait.

His footsteps creak on the stairs. The human body really is a peculiar creation, because your fear seems to bleed right into newfound arousal.

You look up as he opens the door, using his phone flashlight as a guiding light. It is facing upward, illuminating him. Your phone screen is on, offering some light over your own features.

You are still wearing the sweater and sweatpants you cleaned in, absolutely not a sexy outfit for a first time sleeping together. You considered ordering special lingerie for the occasion but you are still quite bad about feeling embarrassed about those things. You made yourself nervous and balked every time you pictured walking in the room with them on. You think you will do that one day. You will probably have to make yourself comfortable with it first. Maybe you will send him a video.

You look up at him, your heart pounding just thinking about it. He gazes back at you. He is wearing jeans and a t-shirt, also not an especially fancy outfit to celebrate any firsts.

His face is bare. Your hair is loose. There is something about the shadows and a new room that makes you feel like strangers for a moment. You tell him as much, mostly to fill the silence, because he is staring at you and his gaze is far too amorous to be directed at a silly woman who fell asleep in her cleaning clothes at suppertime.

He tips his head as he looks you. You shiver, as if it is the first time he has ever looked at you, as if he has not made you come a dozen times on his face and hands, as if he has not known you for most of your life.

He turns off his light. The room is plunged into darkness. That ridiculous heart of yours starts leaping around like it has an electric current.

“Hyunjin,” you say, reaching blindly. You gasp when he captures your hand, leading it onto his shoulder. Then you feel his whole body, his hair brushing your face, his hands on you. Your eyes begin to adjust to the darkness and see you him a little better, the muscle definition in his arms, the necklace dangling when he leans down towards you.

“I’d fall in love with you again,” he says. “If we were. Strangers. If I was seeing you now for the first time.” He touches your cheek, brushes his knuckles up your temple then slips his fingers into your unruly hair. “I think I’ve fallen in love with you a hundred different ways. I think I will again.”

“You know I am not good at speaking with poetic embellishment,” you say, swallowing around the lump in your throat, one caused by both sentiment and nerves. “So I will have to speak plainly with you. I love you too, Hyunjin. I always have. If we were meeting for the first time right now, though, I would probably be screaming and throwing things at you.”

He laughs and the sound make you feel like you are glowing. You need no other light. You reach up and touch his face and you see him perfectly, can picture his smile even before you trace your thumb across his bottom lip. You cannot draw like him, but if you could, you would scribble his likeness in the margin of your work as well.

“Good thing we’re not strangers, then,” he says. “Because I’d really rather make love to you.” He swoops down and kisses your forehead. “My friend.” He kisses a sensitive spot below your ear, the place he teases when he wants to rile you up quickly. “Baby.” Then he is tipping your head at the perfect angle to lean down, his lips brushing yours when he says, “My pretty girl.”

“Nonsense,” you say breathlessly, because of course you do.

And of course he kisses you.

He kisses you deeply, holding the back of your head as he gently lays you down. You push the covers away, opening yourself to him completely. You wrap around each other, sinking into the sheets, arching your back to feel more of him.

You gasp when he tugs your hair. He has already found so many ways to make you plaint and needy, to forget your skills of articulation and lose every word but his name.

“That’s it,” he says, hooking your legs around his waist. “Show me what you want, baby.”

You reach between your bodies, cupping where he is already hard in his jeans. Everything about him is so hard against you, you in your soft sweats with your pool of curly hair, losing yourself as his strong hands work their way down your body. He lifts your shirt off and tosses it to the side, then gathers your hands because you always have an instinctive moment of covering yourself. You are modest by nature, but you trust him with everything. It is exhilarating, when he takes your wrists and pins them by your head.

For a moment, you do imagine every version of yourselves. You and him, old friends turning into lovers. You and him, established lovers, finally coming together. Two strangers, finding each other for the first time. There is always something new to discover. You love him again and again.

“Say my name,” he says, working his way down your body. He is still fully clothed when he has you fully naked, writhing under him as he pushes his tongue in you. It is a slow seduction with his mouth on your pussy as he kisses you there as thoroughly as he kissed your mouth. “Say it.”

“Hyunjin,” you say, repeating it as you come, your legs wrapped around his head.

He spares you only seconds before his fingers are inside you. You cling to his arm, making noises that still surprise you, begging him with your eyes and hands and little cries. When he cups your face after, you open your mouth wide, wanting. He fucks your mouth like he fucked your pussy, two fingers gliding across your tongue until you are bucking and pleading, sucking on his fingers and staring at him with wide eyes.

“Fuck,” he says, then whips off his shirt.

He kneels and you help tug his jeans and boxers down to his knees. You curl towards him, situated so he can finger you while you wrap your lips around his cock. You are usually very neat about it, but you cannot think clearly with his fingers inside you. You mostly wet him, barely blowing him, but he still kisses you when you pull back.

When he gets the last of his clothes off, he surprises you by sitting back against the headboard and pulling you into his lap. He surprises you even more by folding your arms behind your back and pinning your wrists at the base of your spine. He holds them there in one hand, the other between you as he helps you settle on top of him.

He does know you well. The second his cock so much as brushes you, there is an instinct to cover up. You hands twitch but he holds you, speaking to you gently, soothingly. He eases you through it, breathing just as hard as you sink down until he is fully inside you. Then you are clenching sporadically around him, almost a mini-orgasm just from the initial thrust. He is still holding your arms behind you, guiding you through it with him completely in control. It seems to be the way he likes it, but you don’t mind at all. You can be a stern stickler everywhere else; here you can be his.

“That’s it, that’s my girl,” he says, free hand on your hip, holding you as he rolls his hips under you. “That good, baby?”

You answer with a mewl, dropping your face to his shoulder and staying there. He laughs, eventually lifting your head. Then he puts you on your back and lifts your leg onto his shoulder, and he fucks you in a way you once could only imagine.

He pushes your knees back, presses his body so close to yours. A sheen of perspiration covers his skin and you are certain you are not faring better. It feels good, it feels free. You wrap your arms around him and hold tight.

“My girl,” he says, with a strong thrust, then another. Sounding as deliriously inarticulate as you when he says, “Mine.” And thrusts again. “Mine.” And again. “Always.” Again.

You seek his hand blindly. He offers it, lacing your fingers like the romantic he instinctively is, but you lead it right to your throat where you want him to hold you. When he does, your body goes completely soft for him, like every worry flees at once. You are always so in your head, to be a body feels good, to share it with him even better. You hum with pleasure, mouth open like a good girl for your dreamy bad boy as he leans down and kisses you, his tongue fucking into your mouth with the same vigour he takes your pussy.

When he rubs his thumb over your clit, you last only seconds, your whole body shaking as you lose complete control. He holds you through it, rocking into you, kissing your face and neck. He pulls out and strokes himself to completion, coming on your thighs and pussy.

You wrap around each other after, rolling into the middle of the bed. You somehow migrated horizontally during your lovemaking. You will need to move eventually, but sleep is finally hitting you. You feel Hyunjin clean you up with his t-shirt, but you only stir when he kisses you. You wrap around him and return a few sleepy kisses down his neck. He slides a hand in your hair, cups the back of your neck, and stays like that.

“What next,” you ask sleepily, not fully conscious of your words.

“Mmm.” He sounds just as sleepy. “Still need our dinner date,” he murmurs. “Can decide in the morning.”

“Okay,” you say. And even though you are half asleep and barely conscious, you add, “I can make a spreadsheet.”

He smiles. You think maybe you should learn to draw just so you can draw that smile after all. Maybe there is an artist and a romantic inside you, or maybe it is just the parts of him so entwined with you, forever embedded in your heart. You are actually excited to learn.

You give him one more sleepy kiss. It is early morning now.

You fall asleep together at the start of a new day.

#hwang hyunjin x reader #hyunjin x reader #skz x reader #hyunjin smut #skz smut

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entitled-fangirl · 2 months

Text

His carefully crafted web.

Will Graham x Graham!reader x Hannibal Lecter

Summary: Hannibal wants both the Grahams to himself. He begins to spin his web of lies to get them crawling right to him.

Warning: Manipulation and gaslighting!!

Author's note: You can't look at this gif and be like "That's platonic love." LOOK AT IT! Also- I wanna write just a Hannibal x reader but my mind is blanking so hard.

Masterlist

........................................................

Jack Crawford led the Grahams to the crime scene, letting their eyes wander over the dead body in front of them.

Neither were easily mortified at vicious killings anymore.

After all, she was their head biologist, and Will was their reconstruction specialist.

But the dead body in front of them sent a small shiver down the woman's spine.

Will noticed and placed a gentle hand on her back. "You alright?"

She nods, "M'fine."

Jack nods at the two, "Do your thing, Will." And he walks out of the house, leaving the two Grahams alone.

Y/N bends down to the body, "This girl drowned on her own blood. That gives you something to go off of." She stands and gives her husband a sweet kiss on the cheek, "I'll be just outside."

He reaches out and grabs her hand, "Stay?"

Her eyebrows furrow, "I thought you do this best alone?"

"I do, but you help me think. Just… you being near helps me. It… brings me back to reality when I get too lost. Just promise me you'll stay?"

She was at a loss for words, "I… yes… of course."

He nods and closes his eyes, taking deep breaths.

…

"You said that to her?" Hannibal asks Will.

"Yeah, and I meant it too. I've been so worried about not coming out of the daze. She… she keeps me away from making my own design."

"And what happens when she can't help you anymore?"

Will sits up, "what do you mean?"

Hannibal blinks, "There may come a day that she can't help you anymore. What if you hurt her?"

Will loses color in his face, "No, I wouldn't do that."

The doctor shrugs, "How do you know?"

"I just won't." He looks up unsure, "Hannibal, that won't happen, right?"

Hannibal sighs, "I can't guarantee it, Will. You and I both know that."

Will sits back and runs a hand over his face. How could he be so stupid to not think about that? What if he wakes up from his daze to be covered in her blood?

He doesn't think he'd be able to live.

"Just promise me, Will. If something happens, anything, that you'll come to me. I can protect you. And her."

Will nods like it's obvious.

…

Hannibal had a plan in motion. He always does.

And he wanted the Grahams.

He knew that they were attached at the hip, practically an extension of the other. So in order to gain their trust, he'd have to break them apart.

But he knew he could always get them back together once they were his.

So, getting under Will's skin was the first step.

And it was too easy.

Hannibal was beginning to spin his little web.

Now, to get Will's wife.

…

"Y/N, may I speak with you?" Hannibal asked the biologist.

She looked up from her microscope in the lab, "Hannibal? You're the last person I expected to see. I'm pleased, don't get me wrong."

He smiled, "I understand. I'm just worried about you."

"Me?" She scoffs lightly, "Why are you worried for me?"

He steps up to her, letting his voice drop, "Has Will ever… laid his hands on you?"

She blinked, "What?"

"Has he hurt you?"

Y/N stepped away from his in suspicion. "No. Will would never. Why are you pointing fingers, Hannibal?"

Hannibal sighs as sets his blazer over a chair. "I'm worried that he's become unstable."

She nods, "He is but he's getting better. That doesn't put me at risk."

His eyebrow raised, "It doesn't?"

Suddenly, she wasn't so sure.

"No, it… Will… he… um… Hannibal, I don't understand."

He steps a bit closer now, their faces inches apart, "If he lays a hand on you, or hurts you in any way, I want to be the first to know. I would never let him touch you."

She tilts her head, "Hannib-"

"-No more. I need a promise, Y/N."

She shakes her head, "It won't happen."

He reaches forward and brushes hair behind her ear, "Your promise, Graham."

"I promise?"

He nods, "Good girl."

And with that, he grabs his jacket and leaves.

…

Now, the Grahams were avoiding each other.

Neither wanted to talk out their recent feelings with the psychiatrist.

And Hannibal could not be more pleased.

Both came practically crawling to him.

And he welcomed them with feigned surprise and open arms.

…

A few months and many manipulative talks later, he had them trained exactly how he wanted them.

Hannibal came home and set his bag down gently, "Y/N?" His voice rang out.

She floated down the stairs happily, "You're home early!"

He smiled and wrapped his arms around her waist, "I wanted to see you two as quickly as I could."

Will rounded the corner, "Oh. I didn't hear you come in, Hannibal."

Hannibal's smile only grew, "When you read, you're in another world, dear Will."

The two share a gently kiss.

Will pulls Y/N away from Hannibal's arms to wrap his own around the girl.

"I've been thinking," Hannibal says. He states it as if it's a new thought, and not one he had planned since the day he met the pair, "I feel a bit left out. You're both the Grahams."

Will places a kiss on the woman's neck and then looks up at Hannibal, "Oh, did you want to be a Graham, too, Hannibal? We can make that happen."

"No," Hannibal said with a smirk as he stared at the beautiful couple in front of him- the couple that lived in his home, ate his dinners he created, and slept beside him every night. The couple that belonged to him. "I believe the Lecters are more elegant. Don't you, darling?" He looks at Y/N.

Her lips pull into a line and she looks up at Will, "The Lecters? Will?"

Will was already beaming, "The Lecters. I've never been more sure of anything in my life, Hannibal."

Hannibal smiled.

…

He had spun his web slowly and meticulously, paying attention to every detail.

And the two little bugs known as the Grahams had landed right in it unknowingly.

After all, the spider was very charming.

.....................................................

#fanfiction #nbc hannibal #hannibal nbc #hannibal fanfiction #hannibal lecter #hannibal #mads mikkelsen #will graham imagines #will graham x reader #will graham fanfiction #will graham imagine #will graham #hugh dancy x reader #hugh dancy #hannibal fandom

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yorshie · 1 year

Text

Bayverse Headcanons

Just some headcanons I keep in mind when I'm writing bayverse. Will probably come back and add more as I decide on them.

Leonardo

Height/weight: 6’2”, 670lbs

Theme song : Loyal by ODESZA

Ambidextrous but if he needs to punch someone he uses his right hand

Has a dry sense of humor, more little quips and witty one liners than anything planned

Turns into a bit of a caveman when you’re in danger. He catches you going someplace dangerous? Straight to turtle jail for 1000 years. You don’t wanna be picked up and carried to safety? Too bad, it’s happening

Is the King of small touches. A hand on your back, a nudge of his knuckles to get you moving. Mr. soft eyes and low voice when he wants to get his way

Still gets into arguments with Raph. Sometimes they still dissolve into fisticuffs.

References vines to the horror of his brothers (his fav is “road work ahead”)

No one will play Risk with him because even if he’s losing he somehow bleeds everyone dry

Has a gameboy with exactly one game, Harvest Moon: Friends of Mineral Town. All his animals have names like "Bob" or "Tilda"

can't cook, is banned from the kitchen, once set water on fire.

reads science fiction, fantasy and sagas a lot, though if you pay attention to his books the covers are sometimes swapped and it's almost always poetry or romances.

Not a big fan of PDA. Will give you a snoot boop or a chaste forehead kiss in public, but anything more is off limits. What’s that? You wanna snuggle? You better hope none of his brothers walk in because this turtle might panic and shove you off his lap in a snap decision instinct. You wanna go to his room? The scandal. What will everyone think? Fine, but he’ll ninja you in there. No one will know or see. Ninja silent. Except- Donnie will know. Donnie will see. Because he was sitting in the chair right next to you two and you both somehow forgot he was there.

Hogs the bed. And the covers. And the pillows. Basically if you want any bed commodity you better be prepared to snuggle

If you want him to watch tv that’s not sports it’s gotta be some older saga or classic that you actually have to pay attention to. Loves black and white martial arts movies. You once caught him hugging a pillow and watching Princess Mononoke with tears in his eyes.

Will just stare at the person who asked him to kill a little harmless spider before leaving the room

Donatello

Height/Weight: 6’8”/ 680lbs

Theme Song: Frequency by Tim Wolf

Left handed

Donnie is THE sarcastic little shit.

He realizes quickly that while Leo has softness, and Raph is filthy, he doesn’t need to stoop to theatrics to get what he wants. He just has to make eye contact, tilt his head, and tell you in a calm, plain voice what he desires, and it works.

Can’t keep his attention on one thing for a long period of time, or has to have multiple stimuli going on to keep focus. King of multitasking

The turtle most likely to curse

Can’t sleep without a nightlight and either music or a movie

Listens to filthy music when he’s working.

The others gang up on him during trivia night to give everyone else a chance

the adrenaline junkie

one time he got Leo's tea mixed up with his coffee and he spat the substance clear across the Lair.

can cook but it's kinda bland. Can't bake to save his life, despite arguing with every failed cake like it’s out to get him: “it’s science why won’t you work??!”

hasn't opened a real book since the invention of the internet. Has a library of hard drives with the subject matter clearly labeled in alphabetical order. Mikey doesn't know about it and thus it has stayed relatively in order.

Doesn’t use his bed much, so the upside is you always have room to stretch out. Bad news is, if you want this turtle to get any decent sleep, you have to figure out how to keep him trapped enough where he can’t move without waking you up. And he’s a ninja.

Donnie likes to watch informative things. Like how it’s made, or unsolved mysteries. His crack show though? Cryptid hunters. He’ll laugh himself silly over people trying to trap Bigfoot or corner Mothman

The one that kills spiders

Raphael

Height/Weight: 6’5”/ 720lbs

Theme Song: Don’t Get in My Way by Zack Hemsey

Right handed

Turtle has a MOUTH and he is not afraid to open it to to get what he wants. Absolutely filthy when he wants to be.

Will turn into a little melted turtle puddle if someone is sweet to him. Doesn’t really turn to butter over words, but actions will get him every time.

Watches crocodile hunter and golden girls when no one else is awake. Loves animal documentaries, and zoboomafoo

Rough around the edges when it comes to heartfelt affection or feelings. With seduction he’s smooth, but telling someone he genuinely cares for them? Good luck stringing two words together my dude.

Prefers silence or listening when hanging out with someone. He’s slow with his input, careful with what he says. You’re winning if you can make him laugh

in the kitchen he’s either making the most disgusting looking thing that tastes fucking amazing or he’s grilling. Doesn’t tell anyone he learned how to make bread watching Julia Childe.

If he's doing something dangerous or something stupid, the worse thing you could say is along the line of "Leo said-" like, congrats, you just made sure he's gonna do the thing everyone knows he shouldn't. Flip side, he's trying to talk you out of doing something? Just sigh and say "ok, guess I'll go ask Leo-" Boom. Thing is done. Is it healthy? no. Does it work? yes.

Is the most considerate when it comes to sleepy time. He’ll make sure you have your own pillow, own blankets. He sleeps on his stomach and doesn’t move much, and is large enough that you could sleep tucked under the lip of his shell without fear of being squashed

Not the one to call if you see a spider. He will scream

Michelangelo

Height/weight: 6’0”/ 640lbs

Theme Song: Handclap by Fitz and the Tantrums

Right handed but if he puts his mind to it he can use his left equally for everything but writing

Is legally obligated to use cheesy pick up lines, and is a Talker

Uses lollipops and hard candy to keep his focus, bit of an oral fixation

completely ruins heartfelt moments by getting sidetracked. Can be giving the mushiest compliments then in the next breath go "so you gonna eat that leftover cake in your fridge or nah?"

Changes nicknames for you on a semi-weekly basis just to keep you on your toes and to annoy his brothers

Prankster extraordinare

Can cook, but like the annoying ‘these are the worst ingredients to combine and somehow this tastes good and I'm going to sue you over telling me what's in this’

Is the best with understanding emotions and expressing himself. Yes, Leo might be better reading body language, but Mikey has empathy over why someone might react a certain way, not just 'if I do y then x happens'

Will push buttons to see how much he can bug someone

The one most likely to help you sneak out and get up to shit. Also the one most likely to get you two caught.

Makes up song lyrics when he doesn't know the actual words. Will change them to suit his needs, or how badly he wants to tick off his brothers. Not sure who would get the MOST annoyed by wrong lyrics on purpose, but you just know he has a different set fine tuned for each brother

His bed is basically a storage container for pillows and blankets. Which is good, because he is a serial cuddler, and if you need space to sleep you’ve got plenty of pillows to act as a body double if needs be

Loves soap operas, iron chef, diners drive-ins and dives. The more drama is in it, the more he eats it up. He and Raph bond over Golden Girls once the bigger brother realized he wasn’t going to get teased over it

Will pick up the spider to show you it’s not something to be scared of

#tmnt headcanons #tmnt bayverse #tmnt bayverse headcanons #bayverse leonardo #bayverse donatello #bayverse raphael #bayverse michelangelo #my writing snippets

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doggoboigaugau · 1 year

Text

Stray dog (Part 6)

Part 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5

Pairings: Ghost x Soap x Male Reader

Summary: Soap goes to see Male Reader after the incident between him and Ghost.

Word count: 2033

Warning: none.

You know you’ve fucked up. Losing control over your own actions and unleashing your emotions on your L.T. in front of everyone. Now you’ll be seen as a liability. If they’re kind enough, they may cross your name out of the upcoming mission and will take care of you later after the mission is over, and if not, they can get rid of you, making you transfer elsewhere and then you will have to start from scratch again, trying to build relationships with new faces while coping with the strange circumstances. Not that you are anything near as close with the other men of the 141 as they are to each other, but at least they’ve been around you enough to understand you to a certain extent and will let you have a leeway occasionally with the meetings or the paper works when they notice you’re not really OK for those seemingly effortless errands. With new people? You probably will have to shut your mouth and forget about your own emotional needs pretty usually so as not to be the center of disdain and labeled as an incompetent outcast.

As these thoughts run through your mind like midnight trains that seemingly carry with them the hope and dream of a lone onlooker into the pitch darkness, you sit in your room, door is locked, all windows are closed shut, with hands covering your face. You dread the thought of having to adapt to a new environment with new people so much that you think if the worst-case scenario ever happens, you will just end it all to save yourselves from further suffering and your stupid, unrealistic expectations.

What kind of expectations specifically? Well, you’ve never created a positive impression on any other teams before the 141 since you’re always that timid, reversed, and obviously mentally struggling pathetic wet blanket that stayed in the corner every meeting. No one wanted to talk to you or spend their precious leisure time with you because no one wanted to waste their time on a depressed little shit, or get heavily attached to by a crybaby that demanded their attention 24/7 or else he’d think he was worth nothing to them. Therefore, whenever you received the news that you’d be transferred to a new team, you always expected a new chance to be a different person. You would always try to muster all your courage and all the…qualities closest to extroversion inside you (if it ever exists) with the hope that this new team could be different. You would present them with a more optimistic, outgoing, and attractive picture of yourself, and they would remember to include you in everything, like some silly card games, some sparring bets, or simply just listing your name along with theirs when they plan to do something. You thought the feeling of loneliness and isolation that you used to feel among your old teammates would end. You thought you would stop feeling so invisible.

Technically, you do achieve these things while being with the 141, although you’re still the depressed, pathetic boy that refuses to open up for fear of your expectations not being lived up to; it’s your coping mechanism: you’d rather have nothing after all than risk being hurt. The 141 consists of kind and considerate men; they all have their secret, traumatic background stories so they understand that sometimes you need your time alone to process your own emotions without even having to know the exact reasons why; they always include you in everything they do, and it warms your heart every time they call out your name and insist on you going with them to different places. Still, one problem persists though, which is the inevitable fact that you have grown so attached to them that you feel impossible to ever have to leave. Even the thought of it makes your heart sink and your stomach lurch. It makes you feel physically sick. What’s worse is you probably mean nowhere near as significant to them as they are to you, which is a truth you cannot escape but still try so hard to ignore.

It was about some hours after the incident when someone knocked on your door. You try to stay as quiet as possible, even going as far as holding your breath so that whoever is on the other side of the door will think you’re not inside or you’re sleeping and will go away.

“I know you’re inside, and I know you’re not sleeping, Y/n.” Soap says with an unusually stern voice.

You groan loudly and stand up. Upon opening the door, you’re greeted with the sight of a big, angry Scottish man crossing his arms in front of his chest, his arm muscles stiffening. Apparently, he is here because of the stuff between you and Ghost. A thought suddenly crosses your mind, as you wonder what it would feel like if you also had someone who cared about you that much. It must feel nice. You think despairingly to yourself, though on the outside, you still keep that expressionless face before Soap.

“What do you want?”

“What do I want?” Soap scoffs, “Do you realize the dire situation you’re in right now?”

“Of course I do, you think I’m an idiot?” You grimace, feeling the indignation building up inside you again while the jealousy is burning your organs.

“Then why did you ask me that question?” Soap almost screams at your face.

Something suddenly snaps inside you, and you growl like a hurt animal, “YOU ALL WILL KICK ME OUT ANYWAY, SO WHY BOTHER?”

The Scott is obviously taken aback by your emotional explosion, his eyes widen and he takes one step back, “What do you mean by…kicking you out?”

“What’s else besides kicking me out of this team? Isn’t it obvious?” Your chest rises and falls noticeably as you feel like a combination of violent emotions is choking your throat. Anger, jealousy, despair, regret, hopelessness,... the worst-case scenario is so close to stopping being a scenario as you are actively making it truly happen. You scoff at yourself when the Scott is still trying to come up with the right words, a term that you despise so much suddenly pops up in your mind. Self-fulfilling prophecy. You despise that term with all your heart because you feel like whoever coined it and whoever uses it is blaming you, the person who has suffered so much in the past and is the victim of his own circumstances, for not being able to break the cycle yourself. How can anyone expect a deeply wounded soul to save itself? How can they expect right from the start that the soul knows how to achieve such a feast?

“Y/n…we’ve never planned to kick you out…” Soap carefully speaks with his softest voice possible, aware that acting impulsively right now will probably result in catastrophic consequences that can never be undone.

“It’s either today or some day in the future. It’s inevitable.” You coldly say.

“Why? Why are you so sure that we’ll get rid of you sooner or later?” Soap asks, clearly puzzled by your certitude.

“BECAUSE I’M REPLACEABLE!” You scream again, this time your heart feels like it’s being ripped open by all the overwhelming emotions which have been bottling up inside you ever since you, as a little boy, became known of what loneliness was. All the questions ‘why no one wants to play with me?’, ‘why am I always alone?’, ‘what do they have that I don’t?’,...‘what is wrong with me?’ and all the memories of how you always stood from far away, watching the kids laughing and playing with each other, or when you were on the street getting to your destination, and you suddenly stopped just to look at a group of young people sharing with each other about their normal days and talking about the new cool song they came across on a social app. The feelings that dominated your senses at those time are hard to describe. They are a mix of jealousy because you knew those people had what you’d never have, despair because you realized who you inherently were was the reason why you’re never meant for such relationships, hopelessness because you had come to terms with that loss, and, strangely, nostalgia. Nostalgia because you used to be in a couple of relationships that could’ve become the same as theirs, like what was going on between you and Fyodor, and you missed those feelings. You missed the touch, the care, and the fire. You missed the person you could’ve become.

“I am replaceable, alright? It has always been like this! Always! I’m nothing to any of you. I’ve always been nothing to every. Fucking. One!” Before you know it, tears are welling up in your eyes and your tough, emotionless facade collapses in front of Soap, revealing the broken, sensitive, and wounded boy behind. You collapse on the floor as well, your legs and one of your arms support to prevent you from hitting yourself against the cold cemented surface, while your other arm cover your shameful face as you cry like a baby in front of one of the greatest soldiers of the base.

“Just go.” You say between your pathetic cries as you try to swing your door shut when still crawling on the floor.

To your surprise, however, the man grabs the door to prevent you from closing it, he does this with so much force that the veins bulge on the back of his hand.

“What the–?”

“Listen to me, Private Y/n.” Soap grunts through his clenched teeth. “We have never thought of you that way. You’re not replaceable to us. You. Are. Important, alright? We can never get rid of your ass because we love you so much, like a real family. Am I understood??”

You looks up at the angry Scottish with your widened brown eyes, still the same innocent, puppy eyes that followed his every step when you’re first transferred to the base of the 141. Soap looks at those eyes and immediately the rage ignited inside him dies out. How can he be angry at you? How can he be angry at those eyes? The man kneels down and pulls you into a big embrace. His warm, large hand rub your back and you can feel his heart beats wildly as your chests touch each other.

“This is how you have been feeling all this time?” Soap asks, his voice rumbles. You flinch a little as his warm breath tickles the sensitive skin on your neck. It feels so strange to be this close to someone.

“This is how you felt that night, after we arrived at the base from the bar? When you stood alone in the parking lot? When you spent the whole day training without eating? This is how you feel all the time with us?”

You cannot reply. Instead, you are clinging on to him as if you’re clinging for your dear life, screaming into his shoulder. Your fingers sink deeply into his clothes, wanting to make use of any other ways to release the powerful tensions within yourself besides screaming your heart out.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry you feel this way. It’s okay, I’m here now, baby. I’m here now.” Soap keeps pouring sweet words of solace and affirmation into your ears as you let all of the suppressed emotions out. Both of you know that this isn’t the end, your pain and deep-seated traumas will not be magically healed right after this embrace just because you finally have the courage to talk about it with someone. But it is enough for now. Soap is proud of you. He is proud because, either deliberately or not, you have decided to open up. Maybe getting help wasn’t what you thought you’d gain when you screamed words deep inside your heart to him a few moments earlier, but this presents a new beginning, a beginning to a life where you believe that you can actually have what you thought you’d never have. And you deserve it. All of it.

To be continued... (dang, when will I be able to finish this?)

Taglist: @justdawn @killmeprettypleasee @livelaugh-light @therealppboy @arthurmorgansballsack @redjeanjacket @gay-as-hell-blog @b0g-b0y @somothegraffitiartist @kodasstar @teippirulla @aphroditeslovr @peter-the-pan @wvandahoe @c0nny3917 @talia-the-gemini

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bedsyandco · 9 months

Text

Lost Time ☆ G. Perreault

note: friends to lovers (is this...all i write? yes😭) with Gabe. Oblivious Gabe...and reader? abrupt ending! sorry baes

requested: yes

wc: 1.1k

You were sitting in the dining hall next to Gabe, pressed into his side, his hand on your thigh drawing patterns absentmindedly. The guys were bickering back and forth but he wasn’t really paying attention, he was too focused on you. He fights a smile when you steal another grape off his tray, trying to be sneaky.

"Oh before I have to leave…" you say turning your body even more in Gabe's direction and putting your hand on his thigh and scrolling through your phone.

He bites his lip and takes a deep breath, trying to stop the fluttering feeling in his stomach as you show him two pictures of different colours.

“Okay, this one or this one?” you ask, swapping between the two photos.

“I like that one more, it’s the school’s colours.” Gabe says referring to the picture of the maroon nail polish.

“I like that one too. I gotta go or I’m gonna be late, but I’ll see you tonight?” you ask, dropping a kiss to Gabe’s cheek as you leave, bidding goodbye to the rest of the guys at the table.

“Dude, when are you gonna ask her out?” Ryan asks

“Never, we’re not like that.” Gabe answers

“Really? Cause I’m pretty sure everyone thinks you guys are dating.” Will says and Gabe shoots him a look that says traitor.

“No they don’t” Gabe argues

“Uh yes they do. I thought you guys were a couple for the first few months after we met. And why do you think no one makes a move on her?…because they think she’s taken.” Cutter says

Gabe hadn’t really thought about the fact that guys hadn’t really approached you. He can’t deny that he felt a sense of satisfaction that people thought you were his. But there was also a sense of disappointment and longing, because it wasn’t true no matter what other people wanted to believe.

“I don’t care what other people think, we’re not together.” Gabe replies

“But you wanna be, right?” Ryan asks and Gabe sighs. He really didn’t want to talk about this.

“It doesn’t matter, she doesn’t feel the same way.” Gabe says, a tone of finality in his voice.

“You’re kidding right? When I assumed you guys were together, most of the time it was because of things that she did. I mean, just five minutes ago she was practically sitting in your lap, looking at you with heart eyes and kissing you goodbye…If those aren’t signs that she feels the same way, I don’t know what is.” Cutter says and when Gabe doesn’t respond the guys thankfully move on to another topic of conversation.

When Gabe goes over to your place that night, he’s still thinking about the conversation he had earlier that day. Were you giving him signals? Maybe he should just ask you? But what if you weren’t sending him signals and you didn’t feel the same. Gabe doesn’t want to risk losing you if you don’t.

When he enters your apartment, he’s immediately met with the smell of popcorn and the sight of you cuddled up on the couch, wearing his hoodie, popcorn sitting on the little table at your side. He chuckles a little at the sight. The popcorn bowl was bigger than your head. You always make too much, so Gabe had taken over popcorn duties for the last few movie nights but he was running a bit late tonight and you were impatient so you went ahead and did it.

When Gabe takes a seat next to you on the couch, you immediately cuddle into his side, where you stay for the rest of the movie. Gabe didn’t really pay attention to the movie at all, his mind still thinking about whether or not he should ask you how you felt. He was pulled out of his thoughts when you turned to him abruptly while the credits rolled on the screen.

“I forgot to show you my nails! Do you wanna see them?” you ask and Gabe smiles while nodding, finding your excitement adorable.

You hold out your hands and he takes them both, holding them gently and inspecting your nails. He was expecting the slightly longer than normal maroon covered nails, what he wasn’t expecting were the little golden 34’s on each ring finger.

“Do you like them?” you ask a little hesitant.

“I love them,” he says, kissing both hands and you smile.

Signals. Surely these were signs that you had feelings for him…right? Gabe couldn’t go on any longer not knowing. He was going to drive himself insane. He just needed to ask you and accept whatever the fallout was of doing so.

He takes a deep breath and holds on tighter to both your hands, for support. “I need to ask you something.”

“Anything,” you answer

“I like you, as more than a friend. And I’m sorry if this is gonna mess things up between us but I can’t go on any longer wondering if you feel the same. I just need to know so that I can either try to move on or…” Gabe says, unable to even speak the words into existence if there were no chance of them being true.

“Gabe of course I like you…I’ve been doing everything I possibly could to make it clear that I like you…short of kissing you or just telling you,” you say

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Gabe asks

“Because I was scared. Terrified really. That you wouldn’t reciprocate my feelings and our friendship wouldn’t be the same afterwards. I thought you knew. I was actually starting to think that maybe you just didn’t have feelings for me.” you say a little sadly.

“No, not at all! I do have feelings for you. A lot of feelings. I can’t believe we could’ve been together all this time…” Gabe says, a little frustrated with himself that if he had taken this risk sooner, you could’ve gotten together months ago.

“Don’t think like that. I love that we both cherish our relationship so much that we didn’t wanna do anything to risk it. We’re just gonna have to make up for lost time.” you say and Gabe smiles a little, loving that you always seem to see the good in every situation.

You shriek when he stands up and throws you over his shoulder.

“What are you doing?” you ask laughter bubbling out of you.

“I’m making up for lost time,” Gabe says walking towards your bedroom.

If things were gonna go like he hopes, you’ll have the rest of your lives to make up for lost time.

#⇢ ˗ˏˋ 📂 bedsyandco works!#⇢ ˗ˏˋ 📜 cam's fics #hockey blurb #nhl blurb #hockey fic #nhl fic #hockey imagine #nhl imagine #nhl fanfiction #gabe perreault #gabe perrault fic #gabe perrault x reader

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azrielsdove · 5 months

Note

you probably have many requests… and I’m sorry if I’m burdening you and just want to say you are under absolutely no obligation to do this. Ignore it! Delete it! Answer it! all would be fine!

could you do any male acotar character x reader based off the song by Bruno Mars. Talking To The Moon?

All your writings are fabulous and have made me feel a lot better when I’m down so thank you!

The Moon Above Us: Lucien X Reader

Warnings: Angst

***

Lucien sat in his room for what felt like the hundredth night in a row, staring up at the bright moon above. The silver light shone gently on his face, illuminating the golden eye that resides there. He sucked in a deep breath as memories ran around his mind.

“Hello,” he said softly, the routine he had become used to. “Where are you at tonight?” He pondered his own question, thinking of all her favorite places. A night out at Rita’s perhaps, surrounded by their friends.

Not that Lucien really classified them as his friends anymore. “What are you up to?” He asked the shining moon, remembering the way it reflected upon her eyes. She would laugh and twirl under the brilliant night sky, hair flowing out wide behind her. A night just like that had been when Lucien began to fall in love.

How could everything change so quickly?

“I wish I could take it back,” he whispered up to the sky. “Everything I said that day. It wasn’t truly about you, not really. I let too many things get to me at once and you were the unfortunate victim to my stress and anger.” A tear slid down his cheek, the pain of losing her at his own foolish hand too much to bear.

He would never forget the hurt on her face as he shouted, the fiery rage in her eyes when she yelled back. He had never felt more ashamed of himself than in those moments after she left their shared home, telling him that she never wanted to see his face again.

Lucien had left that very night. Slipped out of Velaris under the cover of the stars, making his way back to Spring.

Tamlin had caught him talking to the moon several times now. At first his friend was concerned that Lucien had lost it, that the break-up had been more than he could handle. Perhaps it was. Lucien didn’t care to explain that the moon was the last connection he had to her, the only way to speak to her. They may be many Courts apart, but the same glimmering moon hung above both of their heads.

“I will always love you, you know. Do you still love me?” He looked down at his hands. “I would understand if you don’t.”

He could never return to her, not without her wish. He wouldn’t risk showing up in Velaris unannounced, the possible wrath of Rhysand too dangerous. A cowardly part of him didn’t think he would survive her anger, if it remained. So he stayed in Spring, talking to the moon as if it was his old lover.

“My heart belongs to you, my soul belongs to yours. I do not know how much longer I can do this without you.” His voice broke on the last sentence, a vulnerability only she and the moon had ever seen.

Lucien looked up one last time, ready to retire to his bed for the night. He hadn’t been the same since she had gone. As often as he spoke up to the moon, he could only hope she knew just how sorry he was.

***

READER POV

You leaned against the small balcony outside the bedroom that used to house two of you. You were focused on the moon above you, as bright and beautiful as ever. “I hope you’re doing well,” you said, looking up into the night.

After the fight you and Lucien got into, you had told him to never come back. You regretted those rash words all too often, wishing you could go back in time. Try to understand his anger, why he had lashed out at you. You knew, even then, that he wasn’t truly upset with you.

“What are you doing tonight?” You asked the moon, pausing as if waiting for an answer. You knew he had gone back to Spring, clearly wanting to be as far away from you as possible. You had half a mind those first few weeks to go after him, but you didn’t think he’d want to see you. Not after what you said.

You felt like half a soul without him, missing him like you would miss a body part. You and Lucien were made for each other, you were certain of it. Now he was gone, leaving you in the home you used to share on the edge of the Sidra. Rhys had asked if you would like to move, offering up other homes in the area. You declined them all, a piece of you unable to leave this one. You felt like if you left this home, you would be losing all you had left of Lucien.

“I’ve been trying to be okay,” you began, eyes focused on the moon. “It’s hard. I miss you, Lu. I miss you so much. I’m not the same without you.” Tears filled your eyes, threatening to fall at any second.

At first you had felt foolish, talking to the moon. The sleepless nights alone had led you out here, gazing up into the night. That was when it had started. It somehow felt like you were talking to him, as if he was on the other side. You told yourself that even Courts apart, the same moon shone above the both of you.

“I’ll never love anyone else, Lu. It’s only ever been you for me, you know that. I tried to tell you that on that awful night.” The silvery light grew blurry under your vision, emotion taking over.

A tear slid down your cheek as you stared at the night. The moon and the stars dancing across the dark sky, making these hard nights feel a little less long. You knew you would always feel broken, as long as Lucien wasn’t by your side.

***

He was yelling, fire raging behind his russet eye. “Do you think you are better than me? Is that it?” You were taken aback, hardly having closed the door behind you.

“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean, Lu,” you said, trying to keep your voice calm.

He scoffed. “You spend all your days with them, the ‘High Lord’ and his brothers. Do you take me for a fool?” His anger was radiating throughout the room, infecting you as well.

“Excuse me?” You couldn’t believe what you were hearing. “Where is this coming from? I work with them, Lucien. What has crawled up your ass and died?”

“Do not act innocent now! You were just using me, using me to rise up in Spring. Now you can move on to the next male who can give you a higher station. You think the General is going to fuck you? The Shadowsinger? The High Lord himself?” His words were full of hatred, a tone he had never taken with you.

“Have you lost your mind? They are my friends. It has only ever been you, and this is how you have decided to treat me? I would choose your next words very carefully.” You were seething, fists clenched tight at your sides. You knew Lucien had been under a severe amount of stress recently, and something must have pushed him to his limit. However you did not deserve to be attacked like this.

He rolled his eyes. “You are nothing but a user.” His words cut you deep, a knife in your stomach.

You felt hot tears prick at the back of your eyes, anger clouding your vision. “You do not mean that. Tell me you aren’t going to through years of love away due to some, some.. delusion!” You shouted, unable to believe what you were hearing.

“I do mean it. Eris pointed it out to me.” Ah. Eris. That would explain his mood. You calmed ever so slightly, knowing how he got when his brother came around.

“You know as well as anyone that Eris is a fool, Lucien. Do not fall for his games.” You took a step closer to your love, reaching out for him.

He stepped backwards, away from your grasp. “Don’t touch me. I don’t know who to trust anymore.”

You dropped your hand and turned on your heel, heading for the door. You ripped it open, ignoring how hard it slammed against the wall. You would deal with that later. “Get out, Lucien. Get. Out,” you hissed between your teeth, not even fully looking back at him. “I want you gone before I get back, and I never want to see you again. Stay away from me.”

That was the last time you saw him.

***

I’m sorry this took so long to get out!! I haven’t had much time to write recently! I hope this is what you wanted, Talking to the Moon is a FAVORITE song of mine! I made it very sad and angsty, a longing for each other that they don’t realize can be fulfilled. I chose Lucien because I love writing for him! Let me know what you think and thank you for requesting <3

#acotar #acotar x reader #acotar x you #acotar x y/n #lucien x reader #lucien x y/n #lucien x you #lucien vanserra #requests

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alldevilsarehere90 · 11 months

Note

hiii just saw your prompt list, would love some fluff for daryl with 19 and 13 xx

Title: Good enough

Pairing: Daryl x fem reader

Summary: A confrontation in the woods, after you make a almost fatal mistake on a run, doesn’t have the outcome you were expecting.

Word count: 2.6k

Warnings: mentions of walkers, descriptions of disposing of walkers

A/N: Thank you so much for sending me this request, I'm so grateful. Prompts: "Are you always this infuriating?" and "I'll kiss that smile right off your face, just say when." This one got a little angsty, but i kept the ending fluffy. Please enjoy!

This was the third time you'd been out this week, the third time trying to find medical supplies for everyone staying at the prison and meaning, the third time being outside the walls with Daryl.

While the two of you worked incredibly well as a team; being two of the best fighters in your group, your personalities however, seem to clash more and more frequently nowadays.

With the increased runs meant increased awkward silences, snide comments followed by harsh jabs.

If you were honest, you didn't know why he angered you so much but something about him really rubbed you up the wrong way but no matter how much time you spent together you couldn’t quite put your finger on it. Equally you had no idea what you’d done to annoy Daryl, your mere presence seemed to irritate him in ways that you could only describe as irrational.

“We’re losing light, we should camp here?” His voice rasped into the silence, pulling you out of your manic thoughts, that were overcoming you more than you’d care to admit.

Glancing around the wooded area, you noted you had a lot of cover, it was as good a place as any but the idea of being this out in the open had your heart spiking. It had been a while since you had slept outside at night without the prison walls and fences surrounding you. You hadn’t expected to get used to that so quickly and yet here you are, panicking about sleeping in the woods, something you had all done more than enough of. You felt pathetic and irritated at yourself, so naturally you aimed that at the closest person to you, which more often than not was him.

“Here? Really?” your arms folded across your chest as you leaned your weight more on one leg and your hip jutting out with attitude, you knew he hated it and yet you couldn't stop yourself.

“Wha’s wrong with it?” He growled, starting on the defensive already.

“You don’t even want to try and find somewhere…sheltered?”

He stared at you, face unwavering and emotionless. “Na.” And with that he put down his backpack and began setting up camp.

Sucking in a deep breath, willing yourself not to throw a rock at the back of his head, you grumbled, “Fine.” joining him by pulling out your sleeping bag and unravelling it more aggressively than was necessary.

You helped with the tent as much as you could without feeling like you were a hindrance to him, attempting to ignore his side eye and impatient grunts and once everything was set up, night had truly arrived.

The darkness swallowed your landscape into a gaping black abyss. You could no longer see most of the surrounding tree’s and the thick black beyond them was suffocating. Possible eyes hiding in those shadows made your chest feel tight and put your nerves on edge.

Daryl started a small fire and with the small amount of light and warmth it brang it eased your fear somewhat, even with it maybe enticing nearby walkers it was a risk you were willing to take. It was not the dead monsters that had fear churning your stomach, it was the living ones.

The silence was as thick as the darkness, that was until Daryl said, “Yer wanna take first watch or yer want me to?”

You didn’t like the idea of either, you knew sleep would elude you but you were worried sitting and staring into the night your mind would play tricks on you, only increasing your fear. And fear made people stupid. You needed to get your head in the game, for your own sake and Daryl’s. A mistake out here could cost you both dearly.

“I’ll do the second shift if you don’t mind.”

He nodded, eyeing you warily. “A’ight.” When he didn’t look away, you shifted uncomfortably on the ground, a twig snapping underneath you making you jump.

“Listen, what happened back there–”

“We don’t need to do this.” You cut him off, your face flushing from the memory of your earlier raid in the store. Proving your point that a mistake can cost you dearly and today, you not checking thoroughly, you almost paid the price.

He continued staring at you. “I think you should stay home on the next run.”

Instant fury and embarrassment riled up in your chest, burning as it rose, your skin feeling hot all the way up your throat to your hairline. “What?”

“I’ll take Glenn, s’fine. Yer clearly need a break.” he spoke so casually, picking food out of his teeth with a pocket knife.

Your hands shook at your sides, trying to keep some semblance of control you clenched them into fists. “I’m fine, I don’t need a break.” you spoke slowly through gritted teeth.

“Ya do. It ain’t me that almost got bit by a walker today.” He shot at you, his voice low, words suddenly so full of anger, you almost reeled back before your hackles raised in retaliation.

“That’s fucking life now Daryl, it’s almost everyday we have to deal with that shit, so don’t act like it’s not a regular occurance.” Your voice quivered from trying to contain your red hot outrage, threatening to erupt.

He scoffed, only infuriating you more, “I ain’t ever seen ya come that close to being one of ‘em, so don’t gimme tha shit. If I weren’t there, woulda been it for ya.”

Before you could even process the movement, your legs were lifting you and closing the distance between the two of you. Your fists still balled at your sides, knuckles white from your grip you were unable to release. He was immediately on his feet, eyes fixed on yours.

“Yes, Daryl, I’m aware of that. You’ve saved my life more times than I can count but let’s not forget, it goes both ways.”

“I ain’t ever been as stupid as you were today.”

You flinched, reeling, the sting of his words felt as real as if he had physically slapped you in the face. “Are you always this infuriating? What the fuck is your problem?”

“You dun get it, do ya? If somethin' happens to ya, what the fuck am I supposed to do?”

Your body froze at his sudden honesty, knowing how it sounded but refusing to let yourself believe that was the meaning behind those words. Your muscles relaxed slightly, confusion sating some of the anger that had your body trembling. “You aren’t responsible for me Daryl, no-one’s going to blame you if something happens to me.”

He rubbed his face with the palm of his hand, turning his back on you before spinning right back your way. “I dun give a shit bout what anyone thinks. What am I supposed to do if ya ain’t here no more?” he yelled, eyes still on you but now faltering in their confidence slightly.

You feel yourself gulp, trying to moisten the desert dry throat you have suddenly.

“What the fuck are you on about Daryl? You’d be fine, you don’t need me.” Your hands hung limply at your sides, all anger distinguished, now too distracted at the turn this fight seems to have taken.

“The hell I don’t.” His voice was quiet now as his eyes dropped to the ground, his face a slightly pinker shade than usual. Was he blushing?

You were silent, for the first time ever in a heated exchange with him and for once you had no idea how to respond. No comeback, no smart remark; nothing. You were completely taken aback. Not to mention the insanely loud pounding of your heart in your ears made it hard to concentrate. You wiped your hands on your jeans, realising how clammy they suddenly were.

“Forget it,” he storms off into the tent, leaving you standing alone with nothing but your wild thoughts and frozen limbs. That only lasts a minute before your irritation reared its ugly head again, your feet on autopilot following him in.

“Na-ah, you can’t leave it there.” you said pushing into the tent. "Tell me what the hell you mean."

"Na, nuthin’." He'd sat himself down on his sleeping bag, knees resting in the crooks of his arms.

“No, why the fuck do you care so much, when half the time you can’t stand being around me anyway.” you sat down opposite him, running a hand roughly through your hair, exhausted from today’s earlier events and now this.

He glanced up at you through his messy fringe. “I like being around yer.” he voice was just above a whisper, quite the difference to a few minutes ago. His mood swings were giving you whiplash.

“You could have fooled me.” you stare him down, trying to get a read on him. “Why do you act like you hate me most of the time?”

You watched as he chewed the inside of his mouth nervously, avoiding your eyes again and just shrugged.

You shook your head, “Daryl Dixon, that’s not good enough. I deserve an explanation.”

“That’s just it, yer deserve better, I ain’t good enough to feel the way I do about yer.” He growled.

Realisation hits you like a plank of wood right the face, but disbelief still clouded your judgement. You needed clarity. “And how do you feel, exactly?”

He stood abruptly and so did you in response, his calm mood now vanished. “Yer know how I feel!”

“Actually I don’t, Daryl. I'm good at many things but reading minds is not one of them.”

He turns his back on you, in the small space between you, shoulders slumped defeated. “I dun’ hate ya, never have. M’sorry you thought that.”

You wanted to reach out and touch his shoulder, comfort him, ease his troubled mind but your feet and arms were rooted to the spot, afraid if you moved then this entire conversation would cease to be real. You needed it to be real. You needed to hear what he had to say.

“I’m an idiot for feeling the way I do ‘bout yer, I know that. I’m not good enough for someone like yer. I’ve tried to stop, m’sorry, I just can’t.”

Your heart felt broken, how can this man see himself this way. It didn’t make a damn bit of sense to you. And right now, in this moment, you realised exactly why he infuriated you so much.

You had been doing the same thing he had; snapping, arguing every chance you got, disagreeing for the sake of it because you also didn’t feel like you deserved him.

“I don’t want you to stop.” You whispered.

His head slowly lifted, turning towards you, eyes guarded and yet more open than you’d ever seen them. His stare was still cautious, searching your gaze for something. You couldn’t help smiling shyly at him, biting your lower lip with your own nerves.

He straightened up, steeling his arms by his side and said, “I’ll kiss that smile right off ya face, just say when.”

There was something so vulnerable about the way he said it; with a shaky confidence–that much was obvious–his fingers constantly moving against each other, still chewing the inside of his lip but his feet were planted firmly in front of you, unwavering, even though he probably felt like running as far away from you as he could.

A crack of a twig outside caught both your attention, heads snapping towards the sound. He pulled out his knife and edged towards the opening of the tent, arm across protectively in front of you, keeping you behind him.

You both recognised the familiar groans of the dead, Daryl’s tense posture relaxed slightly as he stepped outside and lunged forward. You followed quickly behind him, hearing his knife slam into the skull of the closest walker, you lunged at one setting sights for him before it could turn to you, driving your knife into his head and watching his body slump to the floor by your feet.

Another turned and came for you. Kicking it in the chest, watching it stumble back slamming into the ground before you were on top of it and slamming your knife into his forehead.

The stench perspiring from them was putrid, a smell that has by now been ingrained in your memory. You blew a big breath out as an attempt to rid your nostrils of it as you stood up heading back towards Daryl who cleared the last two walkers.

He stood with his back to you, surveying the woods, listening in the darkness, the way he held his knife, ready for anything. You watched him and when you were sure there were no more walkers nearby, here he was, clothes covered in walker blood, hair stuck to his face and yet, never looked more perfect.

You couldn't help the smile that stretched your mouth.

He turned to you and frowned when he saw your face, "yer ok?"

"When." You replied.

He frowned for a moment before realising exactly what you meant and what you wanted, he couldn’t look away from you as he took tentative steps in your direction.

He sheathed his knife and you did the same, when he stopped in front of you, looking down, he hesitantly asked, "Yer sure?”

"When." You enunciated the word slowly, making the corner of his mouth pull up in a one sided smile. He raised a shaky hand to your face, tucking stray strands of hair behind your ears and you instinctively leant into the warmth of his touch as he brought both hands up to cup your face.

Your heart hammered wildly in your chest, forgetting everything, your fear, the walkers, the prison, everything.

You'd never been this close to him before and you couldn't tear your gaze away from his piercing blue eyes, so scared and unsure, completely opposite to the tough exterior he portrays.

His tongue darted out to wet his lips as he slowly leaned in and met your mouth with his.

A timid and gentle kiss that you soon melted into.

Your legs felt weak beneath you, feeling as if you were floating away from this god forsaken world with nothing but him.

Your hands found solace in his hair, grounding you, using it to pull him closer and deepen the kiss.

His confidence grew then, exploring your mouth with his, an arm snaking around your waist and bringing you closer, body moulded to his.

You had no idea how long you stayed that way, tender caresses between you, but you knew it wasn't long enough. But you were both sucking in much needed air and grinning somewhat awkwardly at each other.

"So…" you started now your breathing had slowed to a normal pace. "What now?"

"We'll get some rest tonight and as soon as the sun comes up we'll head back with the supplies." He replied quietly.

You couldn't help the amused huff of breath that escaped you. Good to know his confession hadn’t made him any less infuriating.

"Wha?" He questioned, his cheeks darkening in the firelight.

"I meant, what now…for us?"

His eyes darted from you to the fire and back again, suddenly seeming so unsure, "what do you want?"

"I want you." You expressed bluntly. "No more games, no more pretending not to like each other. You and me."

His mouth twitched into a smile as he nodded and closed the small amount of distance between you, running his thumb over your bottom lip and lifting your face up to his with his knuckle under your chin.

"Then I'm yours."

#daryl dixon #the walking dead #twd #daryl dixon x reader #daryl dixon fanfiction #daryl x reader #the walking dead fanfiction #daryl dixon fanfic #twd daryl #daryl dixon twd #daryl fanfiction #daryl dixion x reader #the walking dead daryl #daryl twd #request #the walking dead request #daryl dixon request

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cherryo · 2 years

Note

Honestly I’m surprised no one has requested anything with Future Leo, smut or otherwise

But uh..if you’re ok with writing that then maybe some flirty future Leo, with smut if you’re comfortable with that

hi hi love!!! thank you so so much for requesting!! i honestly wasn't that big of a Leo fan before this,,,, but!! the more I wrote and had to look up a love for him like opened up,,,, like big tall man,,, but I digress. im so glad I could write this for you!! i really hope you like it sweetheart <33 pairing: Future!Flirty!Leonardo x fem! reader genre: angst(sorta not really lol) to smut w/ a fluff ending pronouns: fem reader (gn pronouns but mentions of female genitalia and pet names such as "pretty girl") word count: 1.7k warnings: Explicit themes, cursing, movie spoilers, a little bit of angst at the beginning? reader and Casey jr are just worried about Leo, mentions of crying, creampie (wear protection kiddos), mentions of bruises (Leos too strong for his own good <33), raw dogging this shit (wear protection, again, kiddos), leo's mean and goes for it in one thrust with no prep!! teasing, overall Leo is Leo, regardless of how old he is and he will always be a flirty bastard <333 sort of proofread, anyways I hope you like it darling!!

The kraang invasion had messed everything up, but the one thing that didn't really change was Leonardo. He was still that positive leader type (and impossibly funny), even after losing his family. He stayed that beacon of hope, for you and Casey, he might've lost everyone he loved but he gained two people he would die for. Literally, he's tried multiple times to save both of you in life-or-death situations, also meaning he got a lot of lectures.

There you stood with Casey behind you giving Leon the biggest glare he could muster up. You were pacing back an' forth just trying to calm down while giving Leo a lecture and rambling. "I don't why you thought that was smart, Leon. Just because you're the "greatest ninja alive" "making quotation marks, rolling your eyes when Leo gasped at you making fun of his title " god, I hate that Casey calls you that, or that anyone calls you it for that matter. It always goes to your head" flicking his head at the same time "it inflates your ego and makes you think you're invincible and invulnerable and you're not. Plain and simple youre not, do you know how much you make us worry?" At this point, you became more serious in your lecture.

Leo sat up straighter, you only got serious when you were hurting. It was clear his acts of "kindness" were doing more harm than good, he didn't want that, he just didn't know how else to show that he cared for you both. To be honest, he was scared of having to take care of Casey by himself, so when you came along it was almost like a perfect little family.

Casey, realizing how serious this conversation had turned, slowly made his way of the train car and into a different one. He wanted to give his parental figures their space, hoping that that was okay with them.

"And I understand you don't want to lose us or you're simply trying to save us, but why put yourself in that situation when we have it handled? Why jump in front of a train when no ones there? " you were crying now, not loudly just tears streaming down your face. Leo stood up, covering you in a shadow, he grabbed you up into a hug.

"I'm sorry, I know I shouldn't be risking my life, especially in the time we live in now. I just, I can't lose more of my family" he was petting your hair, the other arm wrapped around your shoulder. Your silent tears started getting louder, letting everything you've been holding in, out.

his petting slowly helped you to calm down, realizing all you needed was him to acknowledge his stupid hero complex. "I swear I'll try to let you guys fight your own battles but, if you need help, okay?"

Letting out a feeble 'mhm' letting yourself melt Into his arms. His deep chuckle startled you, forgetting where you were during your little meltdown, realizing that you had snuggled deeper in his arms. "Wow, if I knew getting lectured gets me into this predicament, I would misbehave more often" he squeezed his arm that was around you tighter and lifted your face so you both were looking at each other.

Your face grew red, not just from the crying but now from Leos flirts. even in serious and emotional situations, he was a flirt, most times it made the air lighter. This time though, it made the air tighter, just not with seriousness.

You held his gaze, it had a glint of mischievousness and something you couldn't quite pinpoint. Breaking away from the strong gaze, not able to move your head out of his gasp. You decided the wall beside his head was more interesting than the growing smirk on the handsome turtle's face. Your hands grabbed his wrists, your hand doesn't even for around his right one.

Releasing his grip from your face only for his hands to make their way down to your hips, squeezing to let you know they're staying there. Your face got even redder, if that was possible, just from him grabbing your hips. "Aww, are you feeling okay baby?" He cooed at you, a teasing tone highly noticeable in his 'concern.' You just looked away and pouted, simply ignoring his teasing.

He pulled you closer to him by the hips, making you gasp and place your hands on his plastron. one of his hands started rubbing up and down your side, obviously deciding to stay quiet just spurred him on to get a noise out of you. Good thing you're stubborn, still staying quiet you held his gaze, eyes locked once again. "You're so hot when you're stubborn, you know that? There's nothing I wouldn't do to get you to unravel a bit" he leaned down to whisper that last part in your ear, he lingered in that spot for a minute.

"Why don't you do it?" You rubbed your hands over his plastron, hearing him let out little whimpers here and there. "Excuse me?" At this point he had returned to his full height, hands still roaming your body, "I said, why don't you make me unravel?" You didn't have to say it a third time before you're brought in for a kiss.

He kissed you hard and passionately, trying to put everything he can't say into it. He looped his hands around your lower back to drag you closer, wanting you as close as he could get you at this moment. He brought one hand up to your cheek to direct your face and deepen the kiss. Being tall meant he towered over you, so he leaned down quite a bit to kiss you, but he didn't care he'd do anything to know what you tasted like.

His grip tightens on your back, basically scratching and clawing at you showing his desperation to get you. You tilted your head to deepen the kiss, moaning into it just from how hot it was, the noise made him whimper. You wrapped your arms around his neck, pulling him closer for a change.

He spun you around and laid you on his bed, crawling over you so he could be face-to-face with you again. "Is this okay?" He rested his left hand on your hip, the other holding him up. "Of course it is," you pulled him down into another kiss to give him more reassurance.

He started gripping your hips harder, hard enough to leave a bruise of his fingertips. Making a groaning noise into your mouth, he pulled back and flipped you over onto your stomach. Pulling you hips so your ass was up in the air, the sight of you in this position makes him moan. Him pulling your pants and undies down in one swift movement had you gasping at the rush of cold air and the stare that Leo was looking at you with.

He went back to crawling over you, covering your whole body. He had his plastron right up against your back, making sure you could feel him right there. He reached back to make sure he was aligned before thrusting all the way in, making you cry out in the pain and the sudden stretch. He moaned at the tight feeling of your slick cunt, his hips shaking at the pleasure trying to stay still. He cooed at you, petting your head and going back to rub your hips for comfort.

Giving you enough time to adjust to his size, you slowly moved your hips back towards his. Taking the hint, he pulled just so the tip was in and thrust back in again, slowly thrusting to get a nice rhythmic pace. Keeping the slow pace was almost torturous for you, wanting for him to just let go and go as hard as he wanted.

"Mm harder" you moaned out, he slowed his pace making a 'hm' noise to make you repeat yourself. "Harder please! Please Leon,,,, I wan-nt nhhg,,,you to fuck me as hard as you can!" moaning out the words, you could practically feel his smirk growing as you struggled.

"How could I resist such a request, pretty girl? Especially since you said please" he whispered into your ear, thrusting harder as soon as he was finished talking. His brutal pace was making you moan like a whore, having a hard time even speaking.

He pulled you up so you two were chest to back, he reached down and started making circles on your nub. You were crying at this point, the pleasure was too much for you. "Awww, is this too much for you, baby? You can't even handle what you asked for huh?" Even through his teasing you could hear him straining to keep his moans and whimpers at bay.

" 'm close,," you whimpered out, you could feel his breath on your neck, hearing that you were close made him go even harder. Before you could even warn him, you came, your legs started trembling. Your cunt tightening around his cock was what pushed him over the edge, moaning and grunting right into your ear. Feeling him fill you up made your orgasm over-stimulated, making you even more sensitive.

He fucked you through his orgasm, making you cry out and moan, the feeling sending you into a hazy state. He held you up, you basically went limp in his arms, your orgasm making you have numb legs. Gently pulling out and laying you down, Leo went off to grab a towel and some water.

He came back to find you in the same position he left you, letting out a low whistle, he came over to look over you. "That good huh?" You could practically feel his ego rising, the smirk on his face ever so present.

"The best I've ever had, that's for sure" you made eye contact with him as he laid beside you, the smirk replaced by a soft and loving smile. His fingers tracing your thighs up to your stomach and down back again, he pulled you to where you were resting in the crease of his body.

"I love you"

"I love you too"

#ChaseWrites #rottmnt #rottmnt x reader smut #rottmnt x reader #rottmnt smut #Leonardo #Leonardo smut #future!leo x reader #rise! leo x reader #lawd this made me love leo so so much #he's so #hmmmmm fine

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daisygirlwrites · 1 year

Text

Sapphires (König x fem!Reader)

Summary: You got König the drink you promised him.

Warnings: Consumption of Alcohol

Pairings: König x fem!Reader, slight GhostSoap if you really squint

Word Count: 3,029

Note: No use of (Y/N), hella fluff towards the end

a/n: hello hello! sorry that it took forever for this part but here it is. again, this can be read standalone though it is considered the second fic in my könig x crash works. also, this is long, like the longest of any fics that i posted on here. i wanted to try something a little different this time around, so please, if you have any feedback, they would be appreciated. also, im currently on spring break, so please send in requests if you have any!

taglist: @bobfloydsgf , @warenai , @devilsfoodcake22 , @imalovernotahater , @cutiecusp , @allen-444 , @konig-breedme , @untoldshortsofthefandoms

From your spot at the table, you watched bartenders and servers zip around, getting everyone’s orders and drinks. There were multiple conversations going on at the same time, none of which you paid attention to. Instead, you let your eyes wander over to a certain Austrian man. It wasn’t hard to take notice of him, as being the tallest person in the bar, but just like before in the meeting room, he leaned against the wall, as if he was trying to merge himself with it.

His civilian outfit was similar to Ghost. A black hood and dark jeans. He wears a mask too but just a plain black facemask and covering his hair was a black beanie. And like your partner, he barely lifts up his mask to take a sip of his drink, the beer bottle covering his lower half of his face. If only you had the confidence you had this morning, you would have been right there next to him, catching a glimpse of his features, even if it was just for a second.

Initially, you wanted to chat with him and apologize for being unprofessional before the mission but Soap pulled you into the SUV before you got the chance. Once you got to the bar, like high school, everyone went into their separate groups. Horangi stayed by König and you couldn’t help but feel a slight tinge of jealousy. And with your upbringing, you didn’t dare walk up to them and interrupt their conversation.

Instead, you take a look back to the drink in your hand, it was the same one you’d always get whenever you drank. A simple vodka soda, a reminder of your friends from home and your time in college. How different it would have been if you stayed. To have a normal nine to five life, meeting up with friends on the weekend, worrying about bills. To have the freedom to love. But that’s hard in the life you’re living now. Always a risk of getting injured, a bigger chance of death, you wouldn’t want to put that pressure on someone. And you wouldn’t want that pressure either. The stress comes with waiting, the fear of them being dead and the pain to deal with afterwards.

“Don’t shit where you eat.”

That’s what your old captain told you. Getting involved with a team member usually doesn’t end well. You’ve seen it happen throughout basic and special forces training. If one is gone, either by breaking up or dying, it almost always ruins the team dynamic. Hell, there are rules because of that, to not lose focus of the purpose for missions. It was very rare to hear two soldiers ending up and staying together before retiring but you always heard about the failed attempts.

Even so, with all the warnings and seeing it happen first hand, you understand why. Having to go through a life and death experience with another person is something a normal everyday person rarely goes through. But with the job you have, it’s a daily occurrence. Though, you never developed feelings for your fellow team members. And yet, a six foot nine Austrian mercenary that you just met the same day made you feel something. Just sexual attraction, that’s all, you tell yourself. But, you don’t want a one night stand. You want to know what his favorite drink is, what books he’s into, what kind of humor he likes so you can tell him jokes just to hear him laugh. Maybe, just maybe, that’ll be enough for you. To be close to feel his warmth, not get burned by it. Because burns leave scars and they stay with you for the rest of your life.

“Real quiet tonight, Crash.” Hearing the familiar Manchester accent, you turn your head to catch Ghost lifting up his mask to take a sip of his drink. You got a brief glance of his bare chin. Small light scars are scattered across his skin and there is a bigger one that goes from the top of his lips and stops just before his chin.

Ghost rarely tells you anything personal, but from time to time, Simon does. Usually by accident too. Like finding out this favorite dish had a silly name or the reasons why he hates snakes is because of his father. On the other hand, you were just happy that people were talking to you, so if someone asked, your answer was immediate. Though in this line of work, you try to not make it a habit.

Not only do you wear a mask for anonymity but you have been told that you wear your heart on your sleeves and that it’s easy to tell when you’re lying. It was something about your eyes that held your emotions, so when that was covered up too, people could tell by your body language. You didn’t like the fact that you were an easy person to read, no matter how much you hid yourself. And with a partner who stares at people like a hawk, there’s not a lot to hide from him.

“There’s a lot on my mind right now, LT.”

“A lot? Or just one thing?” You can practically hear the smirk in his voice. He says it in a way that reminds you of your sister. The slight teasing tone whenever she’d ask if there was anyone that caught your eye at school. Then it becomes soft as she tells you to be yourself and that things will turn out fine. But you know Ghost well enough that he won’t give you any brotherly advice, especially if it’s about a relationship.

You don’t give him an answer, instead you just glared at him. He has his civies mask on, a black balaclava with the bottom half of a skull painted onto it. But without the hard plastic cover, his eyes were as easy to read as yours. They narrow, challenging your stare before he gives you a hard poke to your forehead.

“The hell was that for?”

“Being moody and silent doesn't suit you, that’s my job. Just walk up to him and offer him a drink. Promised him this morning’, yeah?”

Ghost watches you drop your mouth, shaking your head as you try to deny, “What-No, I never said that!”

“You’re a shit liar, Soap listened to your conversation before we got into the plane,” he informs you. Honestly, you shouldn’t be surprised. Yet you still are. Ghost knew of your attraction to König but Soap saying it out loud makes it real.

“Shouldn’t you discourage team members from fraternizing with each other?” You question.

He looks up, deep in thought. Ghost stays like that for a couple more seconds, before answering you, “Yes, it is one of my responsibilities. But you’re an adult, I have no say in your personal life unless it affects our job.” Lifting up his mask again, he finishes his drink. You just stare at him, not believing the words he said. Ghost, the one that’s strict on the team and stricter on you, basically giving you the go-ahead to pursue. He slides over his empty glass to one of the servers coming by, nodding at them for refill, before turning his head to you. “If you want to be technical about it, they’re not really a part of the team. We just work with them.”

Getting up from the chair, he ruffles your head, strands of your hair falling to your face. He leans against the table, taking a glance at you as you push your hair back before speaking again. “Plus, I’d be a hypocrite if I tell you to not go after him.” Another thing you didn’t expect to hear Ghost say but before you got a word in, the server comes back and hands him another glass of bourbon. He gives you a small wave as you watch him leave the table, making his way towards the opposite side of the bar and sliding into an empty seat, right next to Soap.

You took another look at your drink before downing it. The liquid burns from the back of your throat to your stomach, the soda that was mixed into it leaves a slightly sweet taste to offset the drink. You bring your glass to the bar, paying for it before heading over to where König was standing.

Unknowns to you, König kept an eye on you throughout the night. As he listens to Horangi’s plans for their next leave, his sight wanders over to you. You were the only one sitting at the table, watching people pass by as you take occasional sips of your drink. Even if he only knows you for a day, seeing how you interact with the team, a girl like you shouldn’t be alone.

Horangi stops mid sentence, taking notice that his teammate wasn’t looking at him. He looks over to the same direction, finding you sitting at the table by yourself. “You should go up to her,” he tells the giant. He watched his eyes widen and shook his head.

“If I’m being honest, she makes me kind of nervous,” König looks away but his mask doesn’t hide the blush coming up from his neck.

“Is that right?” Horangi’s eyes are still on you. But from the corner of his eye, he watches Ghost approaching your direction. “Might miss your shot.”

“Huh?” Turning his head back, he was greeted with the sight of Ghost sitting next to you. He knew you two were close, everyone does. You are his protegee after all, it makes sense. And yet, König couldn’t help but feel his heart sink just a bit. Tearing his gaze away from the two of you, he instead becomes very interested in the beer bottle he was holding. It wasn't like the lager he gets whenever he goes back home during leave, though to be fair, he hasn’t found any other bars serving it outside of the country. However, the one that he has in his hand was the closest one to it. Just a regular brown bottle with a mountain outline etched onto the side. It was simple but König liked it. Lifting his mask, he took one more swig.

Suddenly, he feels someone patting his arm. Glancing over at Horgani, he watches him slowly walk backwards. Cupping his hands, he shouts over the noisy bar, “Aleks is calling me!” Hearing that, König begins to leave his spot by the wall but stops as Horgani yells to him again, “Stay there!”

Confused, he stays by the wall. Kind of annoyed that he was left alone, he finishes his drink. Taking a glance towards his team, he notices that none of them are moving from their spots. That soured his mood a bit. Especially since Horgani was the only person that he talks to and hangs out regularly. Yes, his team is friendly towards him but König felt like he got sent back in time to grade school. As he watched his friends leave him for others. Gripping the bottle tightly, not taking his eyes off his team, he didn’t hear the small footsteps going towards him.

You should turn back, he looks hella pissed right now, you tell yourself. But just like what happened this morning, your mouth was faster than your brain, “König?”

He whipped his head so fast, you thought he would have pulled something. Bright blue eyes stare at you but he says nothing, so you ask him, “Are you alright?”

König hasn’t seen your face up close and he was mesmerized. With your hair in a simple ponytail, the light of the bar illuminates your skin in a warm glow. And good lord, your eye contact, it was like you were staring deep into his soul, he couldn’t help but mirror you. However, with your eyebrows furrowing with concern, he finally responds to you.

“Ah, yes. I’m fine,” König looks down so you wouldn't see him blush, despite the fact he’s wearing a mask.

“Oh! That’s good to hear. You looked a little upset when I came over.”

“Well, my friend left me with no real explanation.” He looked over at Horangi again and was surprised to find him looking back. He gives the Austrian a knowing smile as he lifts up his own drink. He was going to thank him later if things went well with you.

“I get that. My friends didn’t want to hang with me tonight,” you sigh. Would have loved it if one of them stepped up to be my wingman.

“If you’d like, can I keep you company?”

You weren’t sure if he was doing it on purpose but the drop of his voice made your heart skip a beat. Feeling your cheeks warm up, you prayed that it was the alcohol. “I would like that,” you smiled up to him. After a beat of silence, you spoke up again, “I also want to apologize about this morning.”

“For what?” Thinking back on your interaction this morning, he answers his own question, “Offering me a drink? I thought you were being polite.”

“Yes, but that was unprofessional of me.”

“I didn’t see it that way, you made me feel welcomed.” He tilts his head to the side, and while his mask is covering his lower half of his face, you knew he was smiling with how his eyes crinkle in the corners.

“Well, let’s get you that drink then.”

After weaving through the crowd, you felt relief as you leaned on the bar. König stands besides you, having to fight the urge to put his hand on the small of your back. A bartender heads over to the two of you, and König passes them his empty bottle. Pulling your card out, you also pass it over to them, “Can we get two more of those?”

A few moments pass and they come back with two bottles, already opened and your card. After signing the receipt, you slide one of the lagers to König, which he thanks you for. As he takes a drink, you inspect the glass, finding the shape of the mountain familiar. Reading the name of the brand, you smile. While beer wasn’t your preferred drink, it does remind you of home, especially since the one you hand in your hand was brewed not too far to where you grew up.

The bar was becoming a bit crowded, getting pushed back against the wood. König puts a hand on your shoulder and points at an open door that leads to the outside patio. He takes the lead this time, you follow closely behind him. People quickly move out of his way, not wanting to be in the giant’s path.

The temperature outside was cooler but comfortable. You took a deep breath of the fresh air, trying to relax yourself. It was still quiet between the two of you but it was a comfortable silence. Both of you were leaning against the rail, drinking and listening to the noise of your environment.

After a couple minutes, it was you that broke the silence. “So, do you like this brand?”

He looks at you first before glancing down at the bottle , “I do. It’s a bit different from what I get back home, but it’s the closest one to it.” Hearing that, you couldn’t help but feel pride in your home state. “How about you?”

“Oh, it’s not really my go-to choice,” you answer him honestly, “But I like this one. Its brewery is close to my hometown.”

“Really?”

“Heh, yeah,” glancing up at him, you continue, “The mountains are beautiful there. But I bet the ones in Austria is even prettier.”

König shakes his head in disagreement, ‘I’ll need to see the Rocky Mountains for myself first.”

Smiling up to him, he froze. The blood rushed to his cheeks again, although at least the string lights weren’t as bright. However, you were fixated on his face and he couldn’t help but feel self conscious. Though to be fair, he has one of the most lovely shades of blue eyes you’ve ever seen and you were trying to figure out what it reminded you of. After a few seconds, the answer popped into your head.

“Wow, your eyes are like sapphires.” Stunned with what you just said, you attempt to back out, “Oh jeez. I can’t believe I said that out loud. That was pretty corny though, huh?”

König never believed in love at first sight, but with you it, he might be convinced, “Oh no, not at all,” his eyes softened and at this point, he didn't care if his face was red anymore. “I bet anyone would have liked it.”

“I'm glad that you do.”

This was a first of many for König , The first time a girl paid for his drink, to genuinely complement him and to make him fall so quickly. And while he only had confidence in the battlefield, he was confident that you share the sentiment. So badly does he want to kiss you on the lips, but he was afraid it'd be too soon. Instead, he takes your hand that was empty. Placing his bottle on a near by table, he pulls his mask down and brings your hand towards him.

For a second, you catch a glimpse of his pale skin. There were freckles along with small scars that adorned his face. It was evident that he had his nose set back more than once but honestly, it suited him. And his lips, it was a soft shade of pink, the bottom one slightly more plump.

He could smell the perfume you were wearing, some floral sent that reminded him of spring. Your hand felt like velvet even though he could see some small cuts on them, it was signs of a solider. Someone like you shouldn't be in this line of work yet here you are.

His lips are warm, or maybe you're heating up, you couldn't tell. But you knew that once it's over, you will miss it. König pulls back but he doesn't let go and you were grateful for that.

#daisygirlwrites #könig x reader #könig call of duty #könig imagine #könig modern warfare #konig x reader #konig call of duty #konig imagine #call of duty x reader #cod x reader #simon riley #simon ghost riley #horangi #kim horangi hong jin

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everlastlady · 11 months

Note

Hii!! Can we get a headcanon to Striker's reaction to the following situation:

Him and his S/O were on a mission, and Y/N had a risk of getting hurt while protecting their boyfriend

So Striker says how dangerous and reckless that was, with Y/N defending themselves

and so they argue, and in the middle of argument Y/N gets the urge to boop Striker on the nose/snout, so they do just that

Y/N's rises expand, almost covering their entire eyes, they rumble/purr, and their hand is left in the air

How would Striker react to that?

I was a little confused at the end of this request. But I hope this is what you requested. I had fun writing this and I hope that everyone enjoys this request.

┅┅┅┅┅┅┅┅┅┅┅┅┅༻☕༺┅┅┅┅┅┅┅┅┅┅┅┅┅┅┅┅┅┅

You and Striker were both assassins. The two of you met when you both had the same target. Striker fell in love with you seeing how you could brutally kill someone and master a plan. And when the two of you killed the target, and split the money. You both would sometimes run into each other so you both work together and when becoming friends. You soon both became partners in crime in a romantic way. Striker loved you and would always protect you, so sometimes your reckless behavior could lead to Striker scolding you and telling you that you need to be more careful. But you would just roll your eyes because you knew that you would be okay. But you understood where Striker was coming from.

While on a mission, a very important one. Striker explained why this target was dangerous because the target was also an assassin. You were ready for this mission especially since you and Striker would be getting paid a lot of money. When going on the mission everything was going smoothly. Striker was in his disguise and you were in your disguise. Stalking the target, you kept wanting to get ready with the plan but Striker told you to wait. After spending the day following your target and seeing their routine. You both decided to kill the target in their sleep and bring the body to the client. The two of you followed the target home and waited for them to go to bed. “ I promise after this that we'll get some dinner darlin’. “ Striker said, kissing your cheek and standing up. He held your hand and you both saw the lights go off; knowing that your target was asleep.

The two of you quietly sneak into the house. Striker loved to watch you pick locks. It always came in handy whenever the two of you were on a mission or he locked his keys inside his truck. The two of you stepped inside and carefully closed the door. No need to turn on the lights so the two of you tiptoe upstairs. Striker would hold down the target while you stab them. When you and Striker opened the door, you heard a click and the lights were on. The target was standing there with a knife. This wasn’t something you and Striker had expected but was prepared for. Striker was quickly to go at the target, the two of you fighting the target. But the target was just as strong as you and Striker. He knocked down Striker and when Striker tried to get up he fell back catching you since the target threw you into Striker. The two of you groaned and looked up. Your eyes widened seeing the target about to throw their knife at Striker, you jumped in the way and got hit with the knife in the stomach. Striker screamed in fear and anger. He held you close telling you that will be alright. “ Darlin’. Don’t move, it's going to be alright, stay with me. “

When Striker heard the target laugh. Striker hissed and rattled, he stood up and began attacking the target. You tried to stay awake but the last thing you saw was the target crawling back in fear, you heard Striker’s rattling and lastly a loud bang. You eventually woke up and sat up on the bed; you saw stitches on your stomach. Striker was sitting on the bed looking at you. “ You shouldn’t have done that, I would have been fine. I can’t risk losing you, that was dangerous and reckless. “ Striker kept going on about how you could have died. You wanted him to relax so that you two could cuddle. You tried to defend yourself which only led to you and Striker arguing more.

But something came over you and you boop Striker on the nose. You let out a rumble like purr. Striker had your hand in the air as he looked at you as he was blushing. He stared at you for a while and you looked back. Then suddenly the two of you burst out laughing. Striker cups your face and kisses you on the lips. “ You always know how to get out of trouble darlin’, but please next time be careful. “ Striker kissed you. And you kissed back, the two of you rested in the bed and cuddled. The sounds of rattling and purring as the two of you were sleeping in bed.

#helluva boss #hazbin hotel #helluva striker #helluva striker x reader #striker x reader #striker helluva boss #helluva x reader #helluva fanfiction #helluva boss striker #fandoms #fandom #fan fiction #fanfic #writing #writerscorner #writeblr #writers on tumblr #my writing #request ☕📖

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generic-sonic-fan · 4 months

Text

Team Dark Week: Together/Journey

Summary: Rouge recalls some memories of her unlikely journey to becoming the leader of Team Dark. For @teamdarkweek.

2125 words, no content warnings

---

“Hey, Rouge!” Amy waved from the sidewalk.

Rouge landed next to her. “Hey, hun. Sorry not sorry for being late.”

“I figured you would be, so I didn’t worry.” Amy smiled. “How’ve you been?”

“Busy. Now come on, let’s get our pampering on.” She gestured to the nail salon.

“Straight to the point! You’re a girl on a mission as always.”

They entered the salon and were brought over to the pedicure chairs. After removing her shoes, Amy jumped into the cushioned chair and stuck her feet into the pool of hot water below. Rouge followed suite. She activated the massage function and slumped back into her chair. The last mission had been particularly. . . eventful. The massage was doing wonders for her aching wings.

Amy spared no time describing her latest conquest- a massive haul from her favorite consignment store. Rouge was content to sit back and soak it in, occasionally opening her eyes and glancing whenever Amy had a picture to show of the outfits she’d put together already.

“What about you, huh?” Amy asked. Before Rouge could reply, though, she continued. “How are Shadow and Omega doing?”

Rouge pouted. “How am I supposed to know?”

“Uh, I don’t know, they’re your friends?” Amy shrugged.

Fair point. “They’re off doing their own things.”

Amy twiddled her thumbs.

“You really associate them with me that much?” Rouge asked.

“Well gee, I didn’t think it was that bad of an insult!” Amy replied.

“That’s not what I meant.” She took a breath. “Just that, it only felt like yesterday. . .”

—

“I’m an independent contractor. IN-DE-PEND-ENT!”

“If you’re going to accept my offer, that is going to change.”

Rouge bared her fangs, then turned herself away from the bars of her cell, giving a “hmph!” for good measure.

“GUN agents do not work alone. We can’t risk losing communication with an agent on a vital mission.”

“Vital mission? What ‘vital mission’ are you going to send a jewel thief on, hmm?”

“Might I remind you where you are right now?” The officer paused, presumably making some grandiose gesture at the cell around her. “If you don’t accept our offer, you’re going to be serving jail time.”

“Not for long.” Rouge mumbled.

“In maximum security, if you keep that up.”

Rouge covered her mouth. “Oops. Silly me.”

“So make your choice. You can stay in here. . . or you can work with us.”

“Alone.”

“You will be assigned a team.”

“No, I won’t. Not if you want my expertise. You sound very desperate if you’re begging for a known thief to join your cause.”

“Indeed, command is desperate, to consider a thief who’s actually been caught.”

Rouge hissed. “Then why don’t you go find a better one?”

The officer paused. “I-”

“Because there is no better one. Do you know why? Because I work alone. I don’t let anybody slow me down. So go ahead and let me rot in jail, if you’d like, but if you want me on your side you’re going to give me what I’m asking for.”

She looked over her shoulder to see the officer looking down. Her grin faded, however, when he tapped a button hidden under his shirt. It was then that she noticed the tiny wire sneaking up to his ear. A voice spoke from his earpiece, but even with her ears swiveled towards it she couldn’t make much out of it.

The officer looked up again. “Fine. We won’t pair you up with anyone, if you agree to be implanted with a chip that will track your location.”

“An implant seems like a lot of work. Why don’t I just have it, I don’t know, sewn into my clothes right here?” Rouge turned around and tapped her chestplate.

“That isn’t secure-”

“Do you think I’m going to strip on the job?”

The officer stammered a bit, before shaking his head.

“That would be very unprofessional. Now come on, get me out of here. And get me talking to who’s really going to be in charge of this mission.”

The officer grabbed the keys from his belt and unlocked the door.

—

For calling himself a genius, Rouge had easily talked her way into becoming essential for Dr. Robotnik's little mission. The “Eggman” wasn’t all he was cracked up to be, pun intended.

But the small black-and-red hedgehog that followed him, Project SHADOW. . . now that was much more of a challenge. It was the sort of challenge that sucked her in, like trying to crack a bank vault or figuring out how to bypass GUN security systems. No person had ever caught her attention like this before.

She needed to know more. She wanted to pick his brain about all the things she was seeing in his files. That was a stupid idea, of course. She couldn’t afford to get chummy, not when he was her mission.

—

“Where is Shadow?” Rouge asked as Sonic stepped into the observation room of the ARK.

Instead of a quip, she saw Sonic stiffen. He shook his head.

A sort of breathless gasp passed over not just her, but the entire room. Tails, Amy, Knuckles, even Eggman, to some extent. They wandered over to different windows of the observatory.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a star shooting down towards the surface of the planet. She froze.

(If she didn’t look, it wasn’t real.)

Sonic tapped her on the shoulder. She exhaled, tried to paint a normal expression on her face, and turned to him.

In his hand was one of those golden rings Shadow wore around his wrists and ankles.

—

The golden band, an inhibitor ring, as she knew it to be now, sat on a shelf amongst her most prized jewels.

—

Her heart stopped when she saw Shadow in that pod. Even when bullets started flying, she couldn’t get her limbs to work.

“Shadow!” She cried as he tackled her out of the way.

“Stay here.” He replied.

She looked over to see the source of the gunfire- some sort of fancy new Badnik model. Shadow lept around the room to avoid its fire.

“MUST ERADICATE ALL EGGMAN ROBOTS!”

Now that didn’t make any sense. Eggman’s newest and best robot wouldn’t have a destructive streak like this. And the fact that it was currently attacking Shadow, the person that was in the pod, and not her, the intruder trying to steal that person in the pod, meant that-

Shadow charged. The robot put away its miniguns and pulled out a wicked pair of claws. Rouge jumped and flew between them.

“Hey, hold up!” She screamed as she put a palm on each of their chests.

To her surprise, both parties actually listened.

—

They exited the basement of Eggman’s base. Shadow, now amnesiac. And E-123 Omega, a robot now out for revenge.

As they exited out into the blue skies and palm trees, both stayed in the doorway.

Rouge turned back, but any demand for them to hurry up dried on her lips when she saw Shadow’s face.

He blinked. Rubbed his eyes. Blinked again. Stared up into the great big sky above them, as if it might swallow him whole. His quills shivered as the warm breeze blew past him.

The robot shook too, the metal plating clanging against itself drawing her attention away from Shadow. Behind the glass of his optics, his apertures expanded and shrunk three or four times before settling on a size. There was another noise, besides the wind, something whirring within him. Some sort of cooling fan, maybe.

Rouge was sure that Shadow’s metaphorical cooling fans were going off as well.

An Ultimate Lifeform and an Ultimate Robot. Both looking like they were about to short-circuit after a ray of sunshine hit them.

Something in Rouge’s chest clenched, making it difficult to breathe. She pushed it down. “You two ready?”

—

“Thank you for retrieving the Ultimate Lifeform.” The commander said to her.

Rouge wasn’t looking at him. She was looking at Shadow, who was bristling under the attention of four technicians that were poking and prodding at him.

“All in a day’s work.” She replied.

“And the capture of Robotnik tech is very impressive. Now that you’ve got it following your orders, order it to accompany the technicians back to the clean room so that it can undergo-”

“I DO NOT FOLLOW HER ORDERS!” Omega snapped. “I FOLLOW NO ONE’S ORDERS!”

“We know, we know,” she made a calming gesture to Omega, not that it’d do much, as she’d learned recently. “He doesn’t work that way. I’d suggest-”

Three GUN soldiers brought their rifles to their shoulders and pointed them at Omega.

“You didn’t inform us that this one retained its autonomy!” The commander said pointedly.

“Hey, HEY! Put those down!” Rouge ran in front of Omega. “He’s not gonna hurt you as long as you’re not an Eggman robot! Right?”

“IF THEY WISH TO APPREHEND ME TO OBSTRUCT MY MISSION, I INVITE THEM TO TRY.”

“You heard the robot! Put down your weapons.”

“Agent Rouge, we cannot allow it to simply roam free with its programming still intact.”

“Then I’ll get Sonic’s little squirt to evaluate him! Now put those away before he takes it as a challenge.”

The commander gave a gesture to the soldiers, and they lowered the rifles from their shoulders, only barely.

“Okay, good. Now let’s sort this out-” Rouge said.

“Rouge.”

Rouge whipped around to see Shadow being dragged led off by figures in white.

“Let him go!” she flew after him.

She grabbed his wrist and stopped the senior technician from going any further.

“Agent Rouge! Explain your behavior at once.” The commander shouted.

“I won’t let you take him away!” She shouted back. “I won’t let you take either of them. They saved my life. They saved everyone from Metal Overlord! I’m not gonna let you dissect either of them- you owe them that much!”

“Both present a danger to everyone in this room if not evaluated.” The commander hissed. “Are you willing to put your reputation on the line for them?”

“Yes!”

The answer shocked her even coming out of her own mouth. She let go of Shadow’s arm and turned to find the commander with his hand on his chin.

There was nothing left to do but double down. “We’re a team. Team. . .”

All GUN units needed a unit name. ‘Team Rouge’ would probably get an objection from the other two. ‘Team Jewel’ was too cliche. She looked between the two, then down to herself.

“Team Dark.” She said. “We’re Team Dark. We’ll get evaluated together, thank you very much. You’re welcome for our help in saving the world.”

The commander lowered his hand. “Very well. I’ll consider it. Guards.”

As the soldiers swept around them, she now found herself shoulder to shoulder with the hedgehog and the robot.

She was never doing this again. She wasn’t liking being on this end of the equation, the one with no negotiating power, especially not on the behalf of two unstable superweapons who could decide at any point that she wasn’t worth their time. If she continued like this, she was going to end up dead or in someone’s prison cell or-

“Thank you,” Shadow whispered to her.

She looked at him. He met her gaze. She glanced back to Omega. He met her gaze, too.

Any regrets she had were gone as they were escorted down the hall.

—

“Uhhh, Rouge? Rouge?” Amy waved her hand in front of Rouge’s eyes.

“Hmm?”

“You, uh, kinda stopped talking.” Amy explained. “You were saying?”

Rouge took a moment to blink the rest of the memories away and remember where she’d left off. “Oh, nothing. Just how it only felt like yesterday since I stuck my neck out for those two idiots.”

“That’s a little mean of you to call them that.”

“And now we’re friends. So much so that it’s the first thing people like you think of when they see me, apparently.”

“Oh.” Amy relaxed.

“It means we’ve got work to do! We’ve got reputations to maintain, you know.”

“A reputation for what? Being broody loners?”

“That’s more Shadow’s speed. And besides, I doubt he has this problem.”

“Knuckles asked him how you were doing yesterday.”

“Well, Shadow’s always the more sentimental of the team. Omega certainly wouldn’t tolerate it.”

“. . . Tails didn’t even have to ask Omega about you guys before he started talking about what you were up to the last time you left him for repairs.”

“Really?”

Amy nodded.

“Well,” Rouge looked down at her lap, “then I suppose everyone knows.”

“Knows what?”

“That we’re better off together.”

Amy’s eyes lit up. “Awwwwww! See? Aren’t friends the best?”

Rouge rolled her eyes and whispered to herself, “despite everything.”

#teamdarkweek #team dark #sonic adventure 2 #sonic heroes #rouge the bat #shadow the hedgehog #e-123 omega #exploring Rouge's perspective throughout the games where team dark first met!!!

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kabie-whump · 2 months

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AJDJFJIWJDJD YOUR BAIT STORY OMFG.

May I ask for a final part, where Onthyes and Ventis comfort each other and apologize? Just overall sweetness between them with some angst? 👀 (sorry for the constant asks, I just LOVE your writing OMFG).

-- @whumperofworlds

Yes absolutely they definitely need this!

Part 1 | Part 2

Content: drugged whumpee, guilt, stitches, (oblivous) whumpee x caretaker

~~~

Ventis dozes off on the way to Onthyes's house. There's not even a second of fear that Onthyes will drop him, and he feels so safe being carried in his arms that it's easy to let the nightspill finally weigh him down into sleep.

Things are fuzzy after that as Ventis continues to drift in and out of consciousness. He feels himself being gently laid on a bed. Onthyes's scent surrounds him - warm and woody with a hint of citrus.

"The poor fucker." Shayah's voice sounds like it's miles away, but Ventis can feel her hands unwrapping the makeshift bandages covering the claw marks on his side. "He was trying so hard to stay sober."

"He'll recover." Onthyes sounds certain. How can he have so much faith in something who doesn't know how to do anything other than fuck up? "He has us. I just hope he doesn't blame himself."

Ventis lets himself drift above the soft lull of their voices. It's comforting, knowing that his friends have everything taken care of.

Then he's rudely yanked back to awareness by a stinging pain in his side. He gasps, trying to turn away from the source of the pain, but he's stopped by hands on his shoulders keeping him in place.

Ventis opens his eyes to see Onthyes's worried face hovering over him.

"I'm sorry," Onthyes says quickly. "We thought you'd stay out for longer. It will only take a minute, okay? Just try to hold still."

Ventis whines as the pain starts up again. He forces his eyes to focus enough to see what's happening, and nearly faints at the sight of Shayah pulling a length of bloody thread through his wound to hold it closed. Onthyes's hand finds his cheek quickly, turning his face so they're focused on each other.

"Don't look, Ventis. Focus on me. You're okay."

"It hurts," Ventis gasps.

"I know, I know. I'm so sorry. This is all my fault."

Ventis shakes his head quickly. "No, It's mine. I should've let you- ah! Fuck!"

"Sorry, breezy," Shayah murmurs. "I'm almost done."

Onthyes grips Ventis's hands tightly, letting him squeeze them despite his claws digging into his skin. "I should've protected you. I promised I would always protect you."

"You shouldn't have to."

"That doesn't matter. Even if you become the most powerful sorcerer in this world I am always going to be there to keep you safe. I swear it."

Shayah ties off the stitches and reapplies bandages, but Ventis's full attention is on Onthyes. He's exhausted and in pain and he just wants to sleep but he can only stare up at the man kneeling next to him on the bed.

"What the fuck is wrong with you?" Ventis whispers. "Why would you..." He squeezes his eyes closed. "I'm not worth it."

Onthyes makes a pained sound. "Ventis, listen to me." He lets go of Ventis's hands and grabs his face, cupping both of his cheeks. Ventis does as he's told, meeting Onthyes's ivy green eyes and finding them watering dangerously.

"You are worth so much. You are everything to me and I can't let anything happen to you. That's why I get so overbearing sometimes. I need you to be safe because you are the most important thing in my life and I can't lose you."

"But... That's not fair. I can't lose you either. Why do you get to be the one putting yourself at risk for my sake? It's selfish, Onthyes. I need you. I need you alive and by my side and not throwing yourself in front of every bad thing that comes my way."

Tears finally escape Onthyes's eyes and he wipes them away quickly with a shaky smile.

"Let's protect each other, okay?" Ventis says. "You're not my bodyguard. Not my shield or my armor. You're my best friend."

Shayah, who had been quietly putting away her suture tools, let out an exasperated groan, muttering something about "they're so fucking clueless I'm gonna kill them" as she storms out of the room.

~~~

Ventisposting taglist: @scp-1296 @sapphicccici @acer-gaysimpstuff @morning-star-whump @yeetmyskeet @rainydaywhump

@unicornbeck @whumperofworlds

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judesmoonbeauty · 2 months

Text

Ellis Twilight Chapters 21-25 Mad Love Route Summaries 🗡

MDNI, NSFW - Contains 18+ Content! Fan translation only. Not 100% accurate. Please expect grammatical errors. This is an extremely pared down SUMMARY of each chapter. Cybird owns everything. Feel free to re-blog, but please do NOT post my translations elsewhere. The summaries will be uploaded in groups.

Chapter 21

Ellis: Stay with me forever.

Ellis: I’ll never let you go again.

Kate hugs Ellis tightly in response to his words and his body flinches in pain because he's been injured, but didn't want to say anything to her in case he ruined the happy atmosphere. Kate tries to help him up, but she herself collapses due to being tied up in the casket for so long. He reassures her that it's going to be alright because help is on the way. Roger soon arrives at the scene, and after he asks if they're okay, he tells them that they look like shit. He quickly patches them up just enough to get them to a nearby infirmary (his clinic) outside of Crown Castle. Ellis is now completely pale and loses consciousness, which causes Kate to panic, but Roger says he still has a pulse, so he's just passed out.

He removes Ellis shirt which reveals a nasty wound, and Rogers speculates that a weapon covered in poison was most likely the cause of it. Roger excises the superficial necrotic skin tissue, drains as much of the poison as possible, and then disinfects the wounds (AKA an I&D or an irrigation and debridement). All they can do now is wait, so he turns his attention to Kate who he says has skin abrasions, nail lacerations, bruising and mild dehydration. While being treated by Roger, Kate keeps looking at Ellis, and he tells in a matter-of-fact way her that Crown missions always come at the risk of death, and if you're working with Jude, these situations are more frequent than this.

Roger says that he's seen the fate of those cursed by the Briar Thorn with his own eyes – which is to be destroyed by justice. He asks: It was the the prince's sword that destroyed the thorn hedge when rescuing the sleeping princess, wasn't it? Is he to be chopped up literally or metaphorically?

He decides not to muddy the waters anymore with this kind of talk, but tells her that she has to swallow reality properly and make her own choices. Kate now thinks about her future with Ellis, she loves and wants to be with him, but also knows that she must be willing to accept living with this anxiety of him possibly dying. She declares that no matter what she wants to always be with Ellis and have a happy tomorrow with him. Roger smiles and say that he knew the two would be a good fit. That night, Kate never leaves Ellis' side and falls asleep watching over him. The next morning, she feels something soft touching her lips and when she slowly wakes up she sees Ellis watching over her. He says that he was going to wait for her to wake up, but she was so cute that he thought it'd be okay to touch her a little bit, so he kissed her. His color is now back and he apologizes for making Kate worry, who in turn, tells him that she was afraid that he was going to die after all the trouble she went through to finally become lovers with him.

He smiles and says he's not going to die until he kills her, so Kate asks him what they should do because she is so happy right now? He agrees that he is just as happy as she is, wiping away tears from her eyes, and she thinks that she'd rather die right now then ever experience what they just went through. That's when she realizes that being with Ellis will also mean being next to a gaping hole of darkness, so that is why these moments are so irreplaceable and dazzling.

Ellis says he knows something that will make him even more happy, and that's going back home to the castle and sleeping not in separate beds like at the infirmary, but in the same bed. Ellis leans over her as she's lying down and kisses her when all the sudden Roger walks in (omg secondhand embarrassment), and he says that if they're well enough to do that then they are well enough to go home. When they get back to the castle the both say to each other: “I'm home”, and then they both say back to each other “Welcome back home”. AWWWW!

Chapter 22

After they get back to castle and greet each other, Roger said he's going for a beer and when Kate calls out to thank him for his help, Roger tells her to be cautious about not being too reckless with their flirting as they are still recovering. Ellis asks him how reckless is too reckless? Which embarrasses Kate, but Ellis is dead serious which makes Roger laugh, and he says not to do anything that will cause them to break their bodies. Ellis says that he's going to be nice to Kate so she doesn't feel any pain, and Roger is like: That's right, good for you lil' lady. Afterwards, Kate's chamber maid comes rushing up to them and signs to them about how terrible they look.

After Ellis and Kate are separated to take baths, it's dinner time and Kate finds a grumpy Jude in the dining room smoking a cigarette along with Alfons and Elbert. She thinks about how she doesn't know much about Elbert and she observes how every time Elbert asks if a piece of silverware or china is beautiful, Alfons has a rebuttal for it. Then, Alfons starts force feeding Elbert his dinner. The unfamiliar interaction between the two of them makes her feel tense in a way she hasn't felt before, so she asks Jude if it's okay for Elbert to be forced fed by Alfons, but the way he stares at her makes her speech falter. Of course, the grumpy fairy asks her if there isn't another question she should be asking?

Kate thinks for a moment, since Jude no doubt knew about her disappearance, and yet did not show up with Ellis to rescue her, then that means that Jude's been busy tracking down the mastermind of her abduction. This make him smugly smile and say, “Of course,” but it was difficult to do with out the help of Ellis. Alfons chimed in saying that Jude was so busy since his assistant was missing, that he worked twice as hard to research the Privy Council that released the gang.

Since Kate didn't know anything about this, Alfons explains that the Privy Council is always out to get Crown, and so she was kidnapped as part of a ploy to ensnare Crown. Ellis shows up and tells Jude that he owes him that information, and that Ellis himself was going to do a thorough investigation on the origin of her abduction. Ellis' voice was laced with a quiet anger that made a shiver run down her spine, it was as if she could smell the blood in the air. Afraid she runs to him and grabs his sleeve, he hugs her and asks if she applied medicine to her wounds, which prompts Alfons to ask with a heart-shaped hand if they're together?

Kate's face blushes red and Ellis announces that they are now together. Alfons congratulates them and Elbert says he hopes they'll be together a long time making Kate feel ticklish, but she realizes that she hasn't even said anything to Jude about it yet. So, she apologizes to Jude and Ellis for leaving the castle on her own, getting kidnapped and putting Crown at risk. Jude says that a verbal apology won't do her any good as he clicks his tongue at her while she is bowing, and he tells her that she was only, “got caught up”, in the grudge against the Crown, so there is no need to feel responsible. Kate is surprised because she was expecting Jude to say something like: You want to offer an apology, then I'll work you like a cart horse.

Just as she was thinking that, he says, “But you know, with Ellis' escort mission being abandoned, and the princess's selfish behavior. I don't really care about Crown, I just want you to pay for all you put me through. I'm going to have to work you twice as hard for all the time I missed, you're so happy you could cry, aren't you?”

Kate thinks she knew it was too good to be true, and firmly says, “Yes!”, to his request. Ellis says Jude can use him too, so Jude smiles and says, “Then let's get to it. Her Majesty the Queen has given me a direct order to kill the member of the Privy Counsel who released the rest of the gang they had locked up.”

Kate is shocked that the Queen would order the execution of a member of her own Council, and Ellis asks Jude if he can kill him with his own hands. Jude smiles and says Ellis can do whatever suits him. Kate questions Jude as to why an execution has been ordered just because she was kidnapped, and he says its because the person originally had ties with the gang, was receiving money from them (remember this was a human-trafficking case), and this person is completely black-bellied. Additionally, they're sniffing around the kidnappings case that Crown is working, as well as, being the same man who organized her abduction. The council member even put pressure on the police to overlook the incident.

With Jude's smile confirming the punishment fits the crime, Kate says no more, and afterwards she and Ellis are in his room having warm milk when their hands bump into each other when they both reach for a glass at the same time.....

Chapter 23 - MDNI

In Ellis' bedroom, their hands touch each other accidentally, and Kate thinks about how long it's been since they've been alone. She thanks him again for all his help and apologizes for making Ellis feel like he had to say they couldn't be together the last time they were alone. Ellis says that he also needs to thank Kate for caring for his heart all along, for accepting him and his abnormalities even when his parents called him a demon.

Kate says she had often wondered if she should've gone even further with Ellis, and compares her heart to the jar of raspberry jam that spilled over on the table before. Just as there was no way for it to go back in the jar once spilled, her heart could never go back to the way it was before. Ellis says that after the mission is over, they will go shopping together, buy ingredients and make jam in the kitchen together. He explains that if Kate's heart is like jam, and if they ate it together then maybe he could understand how she feels since he wants to know why she fell in love with him, what she thought of him – he wants to know everything so he can get closer to her heart and make her happy.

He takes the empty cup from her hand and asks if she's ready for bed, she thinks back to incident at the cliff side where he offers her to sleep with him so she doesn't have nightmares of being attacked by Jake, and she wonders if he means the same thing now. He hugs her tightly and says that he won't be letting her go today. Kate wonders if his secret box is finally opened up, and if she's being devoured by it? Her mind suddenly fills with unimportant things like the fact that she didn't bring a change of clothes for the next day because she thought they were only drinking warm milk together. Ellis says that even if Kate thinks it's a bad idea, he isn't going to let her go since his selfishness of making her happy takes precedence over what she thinks.

He swiftly scoops her up and takes her to the bed, which smells like sunshine and Ellis, and soon her few seconds of ease are interrupted with a shower of kisses. Soon his tongue opens her mouth causing her body to grow hotter, and after a long kiss he tells Kate that he won't finish this today. Kate is like, WHY?? He smiles and says that of course he wants to and he wants to hold her, but he wants to be careful with her body and he wants to spend time making her feel good. Kate says she wants him to feel good and finish too, but he is firm on his decision, so he pushes her down on the bed and strips her naked.

Her breasts bounce in the palms of his hands and are also loved with his tongue and lips, his fingers slide down her hips while she makes lewd sounds. Ellis smiles and thanks Kate for letting him to find all of her weak points, showing him her sweetest face, and eventually with his gentle whispers her trembling body falls into a comfortable sleep. Ellis watches a happy Kate sleeping and wishes he could look at her forever like that, that he can spoil her so much she can't live without him. Feeling such desires swirling around in his core - “In the end, you're desires are what's most important” - The unforgettable voice echoes in his head and Ellis thinks that someday Kate is going to hate him, and if that time comes....no, rather, he will fill Kate with happiness before that time comes. (Hinting he will then kill her before she grows tired and leaves him). He smiles and places his hand on her neck and thinks about that “someday”.

Soon, it is time for Jude, Ellis and Roger to carry out their mission against the man of the Privy Council having been lured out by false information planted by William, Alfons and Elbert. Kate stands at a distance from the group as she observes the mission, and Ellis wants to know why. She says that she's doing it so that she doesn't slow everyone else down. Ellis tells her that he isn't worried about that and he just doesn't want her to hate him. As Kate turns around, she says, “Hate?”

Chapter 24 - MDNI

“Hate?” Kate asks, and Ellis explains that it's different now than it was before because if he looks the man who tried to kill Kate in the eye, he may kill him in a worse way than any of the other murders she's seen him commit before, and he might make her sad. Kate thought he was concerned with her coming to a dangerous place, but he was just worried that her heart might get broken. She tells him that if Ellis loses his cool, it's okay because they will take the blame together. Kate reasons that she's the one who opened Ellis' box and if Ellis' will is mixed with the will sin, then it makes him even more sinful, so his sin is her sin too.

She tells him she is the one who wanted him to love her like that, and that she doesn't hate him. He smiles a horrifyingly sweet smile, and thanks her because he can't let her go anymore. His face changes when he hears their target walking towards them. The man from the Privy Council arrives with several guards, and asks where the woman is at since he plans to move her before Crown comes to save her, calling the Crown members monsters who need to be eradicated.

Jude cuts him off saying it was the council member who was using the gangs to capture innocent women in order to trample over them like bugs, “Look in the mirror and see which one of us is the monster.” His voice echoes in the pitch black ruins as the guards form a perimeter around the man, then a large thud entered among the guards (it was Roger jumping in the middle of them). The target tells the guards to shoot and kill them all, Roger grabs his rifle and starts firing it while Jude tells Kate she's going to help him, handing her a contraption that was ornament-like object with 'a lot of shiny tube-like things attached to it,' which makes Kate ask, “What is this?”

Jude says that she'll “Know it when you see it. If you set it on fire, he gunpowder inside will explode. Be careful not to blow it up.” But it's already on fire she says, and in a panic she throws it to the other side. When it lands there was a loud BANG due to the gunpowder igniting, making the other side go into a panic. (He gave her a live grenade LOLLLL.) Jude says that now he (Ellis) will take care of the rest, and Kate soon spots Ellis in the midst of the chaos standing behind the man of the Privy Council. He takes his black blade and slashes the man's neck and without a word the target falls to the ground. Jude joins Ellis and Roger and finishes up decimating the remaining guards causing numerous screams to echo in the darkness for a long time before silence finally settles in.

Kate debates if she should find Ellis or not since she knows he doesn't want her to see him committing his sin and making her sad, but she really wants to be near him. When she steps forward to find him she hears Roger yell, “ELLIS!!!!” Kate sees that a guard who is still alive on the ground point a gun at Ellis' back, and the fate of Ellis' tragic end – to be judged of his sin and have his sins cut down - race into her mind. Happiness is fleeting. A moment's inattention, a minor mistake can make it disappear. With out thinking she runs up to the guard and kicks his hand as hard as she could which causes a burning pain to rise in her toes, but just before that she had heard a gunshot.

She calls out to Ellis to see if he is safe, but her vision is covered with darkness and it smells good. When she looks up she sees Ellis hugging her tightly, and when she hears a noise beneath her she looks down to see the guards eyes thinly open with no light left in them, and Ellis' foot lifting from his neck. She instantly becomes confused because she has to let Ellis kill, but is this right? Ellis killed the man who was going to kill him, and she is very very happy that Ellis is alive, still it's something she has to deal with. Just as she was about to move a sharp pain from her foot makes her flinch, looking down she sees blood seeping from it possibly due to the bullet grazing her foot when she kicked the gun.

Ellis tells her that she shouldn't do anything rash, so she apologizes, but says she's glad he's safe. He gives her a hug, thanks her for keeping him safe and says he'll take care of her wounds again. He tells her that now, he'll do everything for her not just breakfast.

A few days later......he checks her wound which has healed up nicely. Fortunately, her shoe protected her from the grazing and it was only a flesh wound, so she only needed to keep off her foot for a while. When Ellis offers to assist her, Jude gripes about when he has time for that? Jude asks him about the report of their mission, and tells him to get to it so he doesn't have to tell him twice. He leaves with Jude, finishes the report, runs back to Kate and has been taking care of her ever since. Ellis helps her to bed, they say good night and he turns off the lights. She accidentally touches his leg when she has a mischievous thought, after she was injured he would only kiss or fondle her besides holding her tightly in bed, so when she looks at Ellis his lips smile nastily like he was having the same thoughts. His face draws closer.....

Premium Story - MDNI

His face draws closer and at first, he offers countless nibbling kisses, and soon his tongue creeps in sinuously, softly debauched. Kate thinks that tonight she's finally going to be able to go all the way with Ellis. For the past few days, she had been dyed by Ellis' touches, hugs and scent. She told herself that she had to be patient because she was waiting for her wound to heal, but more and more she wanted him. She moans with his kisses and he tells her that they've been kissing all day when their lips finally part. Each time one pulls away from the kiss, the other will grab them and pull them back in for more. Kate tells Ellis that she'd be lost without him, he kisses her like he his going to devour her while reaching inside her negligee and tells her he's going to undress her. He also smiles and mentions that since she isn't wearing a corset it's easier to take off. She moans when he touches her bare skin with his soft palms, “So pretty....I'm going to make it harder and harder for you to stay away from me.”

The tip of his lips kiss her nipples and soon his tongue licks them like he's licking up raspberry jam, and Kate realizes that she is trapped in this love that will kill her, but now that she knows such vivid happiness she can never go back to before she knew Ellis. He asks if she feels good, and then asks if she feels even better if he touches her “here”, his long fingers sink deeply into her wetness and without resistance her body swallows his finger up which causes a color of excitement to enter his eyes.

“It's so hot inside you, I feel like my fingers are melting.” He pumps her relentlessly and says that he's glad he has long fingers because it's easier to reach places that make her feel good. Kate can't help but mutter that she wishes Ellis can't do without her either. Ellis says that he's already at a loss without her, but he is concerned that he is going to lose control of himself and hurt her, but Kate reassures him that she wants this. He slowly enters her and asks if he's hurting her (in case you haven't guessed, baby briar is packin'), afterwards he is assured it's okay for him to do as he pleases, he starts thrusting into her and both of them are in sheer ecstasy!

Chapter 25

The one I love will kill me. That's his distorted view of love. If it were a fairy tale, some may say this is a bad ending. But in our case -

Victor tells Kate that she's kept her word, so she is free to fly away or she can stay here and he asks her what she wants to do. She closes her eyes and reflects on all the light and positive things in her life back home versus the dark and sinister things she's witnessed of those who suffer. She stares into Victor's eyes and thinks how both he and William who founded Crown must've peered in unfathomable darkness unlike the fraction of it she's experienced. She will not be able to share or open up with the things she experiences to the people she cares about, but she wants to be with Ellis, who strives for other people's happiness even to the point of getting his hands dirty.

She tells Victor that she would like to continue as a fairy tale keeper if the Queen allows it. At first, Kate thinks she'll be rejected since she got injured twice during the missions and since she put Crown in danger when she got kidnapped. Victor was surprised at first, but he openly welcomes her performing a magic trick which causes doves to fly from his hands when he opens his palm. Kate is amazed and claps her hands, while Victor bows and winks at her, he tells her that no matter what she chose he had been planning to congratulate her like this – even preparing for it all night. He asks her to let her smile illuminate those who dwell in the night even if it may be a curse on her, she thinks that his smile is filled with so much compassion for the Crown boys and her and she agrees.

After Kate leaves, Jude enters the scene saying he was going to leave when Victor had called him over and then saw him playing magic tricks. Victor tells him to wait because he called him over to discuss a proper mission, one that is an order from the Queen this time. Jude clicks his tongue when he snatches the papers that are offered to him, and says that if it's in writing then it's good enough to keep in his room. He asks Victor if he called Jude over just to listen to Kate's answer? Victor says that he is very perceptive and then tasks him with keeping Kate's smile unclouded, but Jude tells him to ask Ellis. Victor asks Jude to take care of the both of them since Ellis is their youngest member. Jude sighs and walks away making grumpy sounds, and while Victor looks up at the light through the trees, he says that he already had both of them rolled up into his pocket, that's why it was an afterthought. (This is an obvious hint about Victor. I translated this individual line, but this is pretty much what he says. I have a theory, but will keep it to myself for now.)

Kate says her goodbyes to her old co-workers as Victor has notified them she will continue working for the palace. During the evening she looks up at the twilight sky and asks herself where she is standing? It's between the day and night. Between what has been and what will be. It felt vague and uncertain, like she isn't connected to anywhere. She suddenly wants to see Ellis, but out of nowhere she is gently hugged from behind, and she immediately knows who it is because his arms wrap around her in a way she could never unravel from. As soon as she sees him the anxiety and frustration of twilight disappear and she is filled with happiness. She thought he was going to wait for her at the castle, but he said that he had a feeling that she'd miss him a little, but that he missed her a lot too. His arms hold her and confines her. He says that he was going to come for her sooner, but a florist's wagon was in trouble and he helped fix it. That sounds like him, Kate thinks as she listens to his story. He is like twilight itself, a mixture of the sinful night and the bright daylight, and she wants to be in these arms forever.

“I love you, Ellis.”

“Kate, it's twilight....”

“Hey Ellis......now is the best time.”

“I'm happy to be hugging you like this Kate, but....”

“We still have to make raspberry jam.”

Kate's heart beat fast as Ellis was looking towards tomorrow with his eyes.

He tells her that, “Someday, with the greatest happiness, he will stop time.”

“Then you'll be mine forever.”

He gently lays his lips on hers. Ellis' secret box has swallowed her whole and gently closed it's lid on her. In a box wrapped in thorns, alone together forever.

The one I love will kill me. That's his distorted view of love. If it were a fairy tale, some may say this is a bad ending. But in our case......One day that day will come and it will be the happiest ending.

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#Ellis Twilight #ikevil ellis #ikemen ellis #ikevil translations #ikevil ellis translations #ellis twilight translations #cybird translations #ikevil spoilers #ikevil jp spoilers

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